"My Civil War" Quilt

The block patterns come from the Three Sisters BOM program by Lori Smith. 

The story of "My Civil War" quilt is one of learning to focus on the positive and staying the course.  The reason this is called My Civil War quilt is two fold.  The fabrics that Broadbent's Quilt shop chose for the 2010 "block of the month (BOM)" project were reproductions of Civil War fabrics. I had never participated in a BOM quilt before.   My quilting to this point was somewhat limited to making quilts for grandkids and kids.  The day I walked in to Broadbents, I saw their sample quilt on a stand and fell in love.  I loved the richness of the fabrics even though I didn't love the arrangement and borders so I just bought extras of the fabrics I loved to create my own arrangement.  The second reason I call this  "My Civil War" quilt is that I worked through a lot of physical (mine) and emotional (family) issues over a period of 8-9 months in one stretch and a couple of weeks straight in the home stretch.  During the piecing period, I was suffering terribly with pain in my back from a disc that slipped each time I stood up or sat down, creating a cyst that was pressing on the nerves in my leg.  After living with the pain, in spite of 3 spinal blocks during the first 6 months, then waiting for an additional nine months (without the minor pain relief from a block) for insurance coverage I had an L 4-5 fusion and discectomy.  Working on piecing this quilt is what saved my sanity during this time. The focus on creating something beautiful spoke peace to my heart in spite of the pain.  After completing the quilt top it was put in a box, I had the surgery and I started into recovery.  Several months later I took it out again and couldn't bear the thought of having someone else quilt it. The desire to finish this quilt myself inspired me to get my long arm
 machine.

 

This block is called Wonderful World.
The blocks were all quilted using Wasatch Quilting's CP12 Blk 301
a custom pattern that Nancy developed for me for another quilt which
just happened to work great for this one as well.

The quilting of this quilt brought it's own set of challenges. Because the patterns I used were so intensively stitched, with double and triple overstitching, it took about two weeks to quilt and about 24 hours of unpicking time due to thread color changes (that I forgot about), a tension problem with a thread change, and a jump the machine made when it hit a complex seam just right (or wrong) and my back was turned.  Towards the end I was ready to give up.  My hands were cramped with arthritis pain from holding the ripper and tweezers.  When a friend asked me why I bothered unpicking (when no one would notice that a portion of the feathered garland border was stitched with the wrong thread.) Please note that at this point I had made a trip to the chiropractor and physical therapist for neck and back issues (exacerbated by leaning in one position for so many hours).  Her question made me stop and think, Why am I doing this?   Then I realized that if I didn't correct the mistakes, every time I looked at this quilt, I would think of those mistakes and wish I had taken the time to fix them, and I would regret it for years to come if not forever.  This is the quilt I am making for me.  I would know.  And that was more important that anyone else not knowing. Is it perfect, NO.  Neither am I.  But when I see this quilt on the wall of my studio whenever I walk in the door, My heart will be filled with joy.  This quilt represents to me a lot of pain and sacrifice but also the promise of joy waiting in the wings if I will but endure.

This block is called Laurel Wreath. Quilted with Wasatch Quilting's CP12 Blk 301.

Left: Maggie's Wildflowers, Center: Crown of Thorns, Right: Kansas Troubles. The quilting patterns I used for the Large triangle came form Wasatch Quilting "cr 26 triangle. The smaller one is "wn 4 tri" also from Wasatch Quilting.

The three outer borders were treated as one and quilted with Wasatch Quilting's "Konda 8", feathered and swirl border.
For the brown border above that I used Wasatch Quilting's "wfr 3 x 10 sashing". I free motioned the loops and swirls on the small green and yellow sashings. and on the green scalloped garland border I quilted with One Song Needle Art's "4066a-Young at Heart feather corner 1a".

The three outer borders were treated as one and quilted with Wasatch Quilting's "Konda 8", feathered and swirl border.

For the brown border above I used Wasatch Quilting's "wfr 3 x 10 sashing". I free motioned the loops and swirls on the small green sashing and on the olive green scalloped garland border I quilted with One Song Needle Art's "4066a-Young at Heart feather corner 1a".

The three outer borders were treated as one and quilted with Wasatch Quilting's "Konda 8", feathered and swirl border.
For the brown border above that I used Wasatch Quilting's "wfr 3 x 10 sashing". I free motioned the loops and swirls on the small green and yellow sashings and on the green scalloped garland border I quilted with One Song Needle Art's "4066a-Young at Heart feather corner 1a".

For the Large corner triangles I used Wasatch Quilting's "cr 26 triangle".  The green scalloped garland border I quilted with One Song Needle Art's "4066a-Young at Heart feather corner 1a".