A Tale of Two Quilts

This week-end I was on a girls’ getaway at a cabin near Ely. I worked on two very different quilts on my retreat.

Whenever I get away I almost always make someone for myself, or for a friend or relative, so this time I decided to make something for someone wholly unrelated to me. I would make a quilt that I would give away as a donation. One of my closest friend’s is deployed with the Navy, and many of the people that I love and care about are serving in the military in some capacity. I decided that I would make a quilt for an organization called Citizen Sam. www.citizensam.com Citizen Sam provides, among other things, quilts for wounded soldiers. When a soldier is wounded, a combat hospital and the transport plane home is often very cold and they don’t have adequate, comfortable blankets. A Citizen Sam quilt gives this soldier a little piece of home; their own quilt to keep and stay warm under. Knowing how my quilts make me feel all cozy and special, especially when I’m sick, I decided that this was the least I could do to support the brave men and women who give up so much to keep us safe here at home. Citizen Sam has just a few criteria for their quilts, such as color (red, white and blue), cotton fabrics and size (48 X 78) to fit on a gurney. Otherwise, the quilter can be as creative as she desires.

I chose fabrics from Connecting Threads “Firecracker” line and a soft, blue flannel for the backing and picked a split rail fence pattern. This goes together quickly, but looks neat, like a pathway. I was able to get the entire quilt, cut out, pieced, quilted and bound in about 24 hours. Now it’s ready to go to a worthy soldier:

I had a few twinges as I quilted this quilt. I was praying for the recipient of the quilt and I caught myself praying, “Keep him safe,” and then I realized that somewhere, out there was a soldier, walking around who would soon be wounded and need my quilt. That made me stop and almost made me cry. I changed my prayers to, “Use this moment in his life to bring him closer to You and make him stronger.” It made me think harder and more seriously about the fact that there ARE young men and women being wounded and killed everyday. I salute their bravery and wish I could do more.

The second quilt I worked on this week-end was strictly for me. I had found a fabric line I really liked, Moda’s “Fruitcake.” It’s a vintage Christmas line in chocolate brown, teal, burgundy, cream and sage green styled after our favorite scrapbooking papers. What’s not to love!? A few weeks ago I picked up a jellyroll with some birthday money. (for the uninitiated a jellyroll is all the fabrics in a line, usually about 40, cut into 2 1/2 inch strips and rolled up in one big, well . . .jellyroll). I had found an unusual quilt pattern that took just a jellyroll and a yard and a half of border fabric. As I started my quilt I had fun laying out the strips and picking which ones would go to together, strip piecing them and then was slightly challenged by cutting them into 60 degree triangles, but I got it all figured out. Once I did that, I pieced them into fans. Then I realized I didn’t have the templates for the setting triangles. Usually in a magazine pattern, which this one was, the templates are in the center of the magazine, but this time they were online and needed to be downloaded. And I was in a remote cabin with NO internet! I called home, and my family took off for the day and forgot to call me back. So, I called my mom in Denver. We almost had it figured out, but the templates were too big to fit on regular printer paper. Argh! Foiled again! I told her I’d try to figure it out on my own. My friend, Laura, and I tried some intricate geometry, but that didn’t work so well either. Finally I decided if I laid out a few of the rows, I might be able to pin some muslin in place and figure out on my own what the templates looked like. This proved to be tricky as they were very strangely shaped pieces. But after a few trials and errors, I had my muslin templates.

Voila! I was then ready to trace the templates onto my border fabric. I forgot at first to turn the templates over to compensate for the way they should go into my quilt, but only messed up three. Eventually, I got them all cut out, my quilt top pieced and all 6 points in every star met. I decided this is one of my favorite quilts I have EVER made:

In the end the week-end proved to be a success. The moral of this tale of two quilts? Well, that was hanging over the patio door. This cabin was loaned to us, free of charge by a man in our church. He and his wife have always graciously let Nathan and I use it whenever they are not there, and again it was available to my friends and I this past week-end. Like the material blessings of cabins, cars and fabric, the gifts of friendships and the ability to create beauty, whether it be quilts, bags, scrapbooks, music or art, it all comes from our Creator.

It’s all His.