This week's quilt has an interesting story behind it like most of my quilts. I made it in 1997. This quilt is actually a miniature replication (25" x 25") of a larger quilt and hangs in my home. Back then I was Relief Society (women's organization in my Church) President and I asked the Bishop (kind of like a priest or pastor of our congregation) if I could redecorate the Relief Society room and much to my delight and astonishment, he liked the idea and gave me the go ahead. I had seen a quilt similar to this in a magazine and the main block was called "Sister's Choice" and I thought that seemed appropriate. My quilting friend also lives in my ward (Church neighborhood congregation) so she signed on to help me. We chose the fabrics and the layout and then asked the women in the other ward that shares our Relief Society room if they wanted to be involved and several of them joined in as well. We began the quilt in May and finished it in June... I guess "many hands does make light work" (or whatever that saying is). The original quilt that hangs in the Relief Society room has 16 blocks instead of the 9 that mine has but everything else looks the same. It is much larger -- probably about 60" x 60". We wanted to incorporate the Relief Society motto which is "Charity Never Faileth" by using various symbols. If you click on the photo you can see that in the border we quilted hearts and hands. We wanted to show that sisters in the Gospel serve and love, reach out to others with compassion and the love of Christ through good works and acts of selflessness and kindness. The name of the quilt is actually a scripture: Ecclesiastes 9:10 which reads "Whatsoever thy hand findeth to do, do it with they might." After we finished the larger quilt, I had the left over scraps and so that is what I made the smaller quilt from. In both quilts the blocks are all machine pieced but then the quilts are both hand-quilted. I love to look at the quilt when I go to Church each Sunday; but then I also get to enjoy my personal version all week long as well. 
2 comments:
I love stories of quilts. I just read a book about map making and there was a chapter on Quilt Maps that helped runaway slaves make it to safety. Sympathetic people hung quilts on the porch or clothesline to leave secret messages. A sailboat pattern means there's a river ahead with a hidden raft. A zigzag pattern meant to walk like a drunk person, back and forth instead of in a straight line. The Crossroads pattern was the symbol for the city of Cleveland, OH. And if you saw a quilt with a log cabin pattern with a black center, you could be sure it was a safe place to stop.
Keep your quilt stories coming!
I love these stories...when do you run out of quilts...they must be like "old friends" to you.
Fondly B.
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