Making Memories with a Dear Friend

Over the many years we've known each other, my dear friend, Harriette, and I have shared many ideas and projects. We have also shared a great deal of joy and, yes, sorrow, most recently the loss of my brother this past October and of her father and mother within the past six months. Our prayers for each other have helped sustain us and our families through some very difficult times. We are seldom without a project, sometimes several, going on. Creating has been a source of therapy and healing for both of us. We have also celebrated the best of times through our creations and made some beautiful memories along the way.  Below (left) is a picture of Harriette and me taken on the day we began our most  recent and, probably, the single largest project we have worked on, to date.  How obvious is it that she was holding the camera in front of us to get this shot? Just one of  many goofy things we have done.  Her sweet mother passed away not long after we began the project from which this post originated. 

Below is the large project I alluded to in one of my previous posts. You can see why I referred to it as a large project. This picture does not show the entire project and it took us a couple of months to complete, mainly because we worked as we could get together for a few hours, here and there. 

The truth is, this is really Harriette's project. I did assist, a little, and I documented with pictures as work progressed, but it was her idea and she provided all the materials(almost all of which she already had on hand). We used her fabulous embroidery machine and her sewing machine for stitching the project together. 

This quilt was made for Harriette's husband, Larry, who had a collection of patches from his boyhood (Boy Scout) days. He also owned a collection of shirts and patches from various sites at which he had worked during his career in security and from various jobs he has been involved with since he retired. Some of these items had been packed away for years and the shirts were just taking up storage space and not being worn. They were mainly for memories' sake but,  as most of us can relate, when something is out of sight, it is not likely we are going to remember it.  Harriette had seen ideas in various places for using tee shirts to make quilts. Larry's shirts were not tee shirts, but other types of knit shirts and even a couple of button-up shirts.What a great idea she came up with to utilize these items to make this "memory" quilt which her husband can use and enjoy! 

If you would like to see how we made this quilt, please, check back for a future post (maybe a couple) and tutorial on how we cut, assembled and sewed this wonderful quilt!