Friendship Quilt -- The Feel Good Quilt

This is the third quilt in the exhibit and I apologize that the photo of the whole quilt is so bad.  The exhibit is now hung at the library and I think it will be easier to take good photos of this and the other quilts in that venue.

You can see the block that Terrie Jensen made is dated '98 and this is a 20th century quilt.  The genesis of this quilt was painful employment, to be honest.  At the time I was manager of business operations of the health management and informatics department at the University.  It was brutal; just a real nightmare.  The stress was overwhelming -- both emotionally and physically -- and I was very expressive about it to my quilting buddies in the Lucky Block group.

In those days many people were on the internet, but not all were so there was still a lot of letter-writing.   Sindy Rodenmayer (TX) organized this quilt among the ladies of Lucky Block and some of the other round robins in which I was involved.  The block design is very simple:  just a muslin square on which you could write, paint, embroider, or applique anything you though might cheer me up.  You can see some of the samples here. 

When I received this box of blocks in the mail, it was totally a surprise.  Imagine how much joy it brought me to see each of these blocks, each festooned with joyful, warm, positivity designed only to make me FEEL GOOD!  It was a big, LOUD message that I was loved and that friendship and love can overcome.  It still makes my heart swell when I see it and think of all the love that went into it. 

The blocks were made by Addie Stedile, Iva Lynn Martin, Wanda Stivison, Joyce Ilona Koch, Susan McGrath, Joan Williamson, Tammy Townsend, Ferrell Wojahn, Nancy Schaub, Marcia Anderson, Dale Ritson, Carol Beltz, Alvera Dothage, Lily Thomas, Lucy Radatz, Carla Drvenkar, Margaret Hawtin, Helen Bravington, Terrie Jensen, Sindy Rodenmayer, Elizabeth Boswell, Florence
Edmonds, Marji Rhine, Jennifer Moore, Jeanine Kelsey, Betty Dippy, Myra Hill, Edith Tibbs, and Isabelle Sanders.  The border was created and constructed by Terrie Jensen (genius) and it was machine quilted using the clamshell pattern.


xoxo

Friendship Quilt Exhibit -- My Right Foot

My Right Foot quilt, ca 1995

This is the second quilt that will be hanging in the Friendship Quilt exhibit at the regional library.  Titled "My Right Foot," it was inspired by my having broken my ankle on April 4, 1994.  I'd been working in the garden planting corms and bulbs and seedlings since around 7:30 am and I hadn't had anything to eat or drink all day.  It was about 4:30 pm and Sabryin was sitting on the other side of the yard making a watercolor.  I remember wanting to get a drink of water, so I went inside and did just that and was walking back down the hill when I stepped on a sweetgum seed pod, which propelled me up into the air and down on the ankle.  I remember laying there on the ground lifting my leg and realizing my foot wasn't attached by bone!! As luck would have it, we live only five minutes from a very cool emergency room and I was in surgery only a couple of hours later.  But I still hadn't eaten anything.  My only meal of the day came at 10:30 pm but it was the most delicious chicken sandwich I ever tasted!! 

This was the theme for the My Right Foot quilt, which was produced as a group effort by the row-by-row robin organized by Wanda Stivison of New Plymouth, OH in 1995.  I made the 2nd row from the top -- the golden figure that seems to be falling (that's me).  The top row was made by Carolyn Nelson of Cobury, OR and the 3rd, 4th, and bottom rows were made by Jeanine Kelsey of Ogden, UT, Shoni Toledo Dee, and Janys Toledo of Chinle, AZ.  As the robin packet was making its way to us, Wanda learned that Jeanine had been diagnosed with congestive heart failure and was told she didn't have long to live, so we were all asked to put a rush on finishing our rows for her quilt. 

Jeanine did pass away but not from the heart failure.  They later discovered she had cancer and that's what took her.

This quilt was made during society's transition from snail mail to e-mail, so each of these ladies got individual letters from me in which I complained about realizing I was not only right-handed, but I discovered I was also right-footed!  I couldn't use the foot pedal for my sewing machine with my left foot and I was jonesing from not being able to sew.  Of course, that was just a minor inconvenience compared with all the other traumas I had to endure while not being able to walk.  The doctors put me in a cast and gave me a pair of crutches which I could not use, so I turned them in and got a folding wheelchair.  Smart move because it enabled me to  actually go to work within two weeks.  Gardening was an even bigger challenge; basically, I crawled around planting seeds and pulling weeds for a few weeks.  You can see how they responded to my complaints; they filled their rows with reminders of how I would soon be back at it once the ankle healed.  And it did!

The top was full of such wonderful color and fabric and incorporates many techniques including applique and embroidery and also embellishments of ribbon and beads.  I was flummoxed when it came to creating a border and complained about that to the extent that Terri Jensen volunteered to create the border, which I think pulls it all together.  She's a genius!

Next time:  The Feel Good Quilt

xoxo