I'm just an average quilter. I won't win any awards but that's okay with me. I recently learned first hand that every quilt contains so much more than fabric and thread. I embarked on a journey to make a quilt for my friend who was diagnosed with colon cancer and was scheduled for surgery. I had two weeks to complete the quilt. I went to my stash and started to make pinwheels because there is something about that block I really love and I could use a lot of different fabrics from my stash. After they where done, I started going through my stash to find something that would go with all these different fabrics. After auditioning and rejecting most of my stash, I remembered this fabric I had purchased several months before. As most quilters do, I had seen this fabric, touched it and just had to have it. I bought the rest of the bolt (about 3yrds) with no idea what I would do with it. It was waiting for me in a draw in my quilting room. I took it out of the draw and layed it out on my cutting table. I put the pinwheel blocks on top and "voila!" it was just right. Susie loved flowers. I started working on the quilt. I was working under a deadline and since I'm retired, I can sew whenever I want and did. My husband started bringing his book into my quilting room so he could be with me. Everything went along fine until it came time to sandwich and quilt the top. First I had to find a place to lay it out. I have three cats so the floor was out of the question. Fortunately, I remembered the large tables in our community center. I asked my husband to come with me and help. I was going to spray baste since I'm not a good pinner. Good thing my husband knows me so well and loves me anyway! He could tell I was really stressed out by all the instruction I was giving him (that's putting it nicely); make sure it's flat, smooth it out, no no no not like that, it has to be centered (you know the rest). The next day I began the quilting. The stitch in the ditch part went pretty well. Of course I did notice that the points on the pinwheels weren't quite perfect. Oh well. It was looking pretty good and I was gaining confidence. Since my husband bought me a Bernina with the BSR for Christmas I decided to try free motion stitching around the flowers, sashing and borders. I was never able to get the thread tension perfect, as a matter of fact there wasn't much that was perfect in the quilt. I started to stress out again. By this time a week had gone by and I had LIVED with this quilt. I worked late into the night, bad decision. I was so tired I was making mistakes. I went to bed. As I was drifting off to sleep, thinking about the quilt, it came to me. This quilt is not about me or the quilting. This quilt is about LOVE. Think about it. I Love quilting. I love the fabric. I love my sewing room, I love my new machine, I Love that my husband, whom I love very much, sits in my room with me while I sew and as I move the quilt around under the needle, I realize I'm thinking about my friend Susie and Loving her. The next morning I approached the day in my quilting room with renewed energy and excitement. Sure I still made mistakes and sometimes my straight line stitching had a little "jog" in it. Surprisingly I came to appreciate the imperfections. I suddenly understood that this quilt was not only about LOVE but also LIFE. My friend Susie's life will change forever but the love we share will never change and sometimes we suffer little "jogs" in life, but they can never change the beautiful person we are. I gave it to Susie the day before her surgery. It was an emotional moment for us both. She thought it was beautiful. I told her over time she would probably see all the imperfections too. That's okay, isn't that what life is all about. The quilt will always be beautiful to her as she is to me. "Love & Life"
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.jpg "2019 Sponsor - BERNINA Q 24")
