Annie's Double Irish Chain Quilt for Jamie

This quilt has such a beautiful story, that it demanded custom quilting. The pattern is Double Irish Chain. The quilting is done with Cream Glide and Glide 60 thread. The quilting pattern is made up of orange peels, feathers, swirls, pebbles, and straight and curved ruler work.

The story is made up of little snippets seem unrelated until that epiphany moment where they all suddenly fit together and you're left in a daze where you wonder you didn't see it all before. 

 

Annie lived a few miles from me. We went to church together, possibly since I was in High School, though since she was a few years my senior, we were worlds apart and she was not an active part of my short-sided world. In other words, she (as an adult) was more aware of my existence than I (as a teenager) was of hers for many years. 'Tis a shame because she and I had many interests in common - scrapbooking and sewing/quilting being two of them.  

Though not blessed with children, Annie and her husband both loved them. Annie poured out her heart and soul teaching the children at church. She loved them and went out of her way to serve them. Her husband took to my youngest two sons and would hand them money and candy at church. I tried to get him to stop (why do your chores at home for pennies when you get way more just by showing up to church and smiling at a friendly man?), but finally I gave up trying. Annie would shake her head and point to his culture being different from ours. 

Jamie came into the picture some 15-20 year ago. Though an acquaintance, our paths did not become very entwined right at first, but has grown little by little, more in the last 5 years with the common interest in American Sign Language. However, we both had a mutual friend in Annie before her death.

Annie became very sick with cancer which spread and the disease finally took her from us. Jamie took it upon herself to be Annie's caregiver and poured her love into her daily ministrations. Five years ago in May, Annie passed on to live with God, and not a day has passed that Jamie hasn't felt that loss. As Annie's husband had to move, he asked me to clean out her sewing room, so among other things, all her fabric came to my house.

 Fast forward to this year. On May 2, through tears, Jamie mentioned it had been 5 years to the day from Annie's passing and not a day went by that she didn't miss her friend. As she spoke, I thought about me having Annie's fabric. I could whip out a quilt for Jamie to remember Annie by, something simple. 

Two weeks later my phone died. Why is that significant? Well, after buying a new phone, my husband restored my settings based on the last back up which was in December. (oops) With that back up, one of the last texts I got was from Jamie asking about me making a quilt for her which I knew would be out of her price range. I had forgotten she wanted one, but it gave me some necessary info without asking.

The next Saturday I was cleaning in the basement and moved a basket with fabric from Annie. I stopped short. The quilt for Jamie with Annie's fabric. What were Jamie's favorite colors? How big was her bed? Wait, didn't it say that in her text? The thoughts kept coming. I detoured on my cleaning and began pawing through the fabric to see what would make a good quilt. And low and behold a partially made quilt was right there! 

At church the next day I asked Jamie her colors which she told me. Hmmm, that partial quilt was not Jamie's colors. "Why?" she asked. I then told Jamie I had Annie's fabric..."You have Annie's fabric!" she interrupted. Yes. And I told her about my findings, but they were not her color scheme. She jumped in again with tears in her eyes, "I'd love it! I don't care if it's my colors or not! It's from Annie. I'd love it!" Well, alright-y then. I don't know when I'd get it done, but I would set it aside for her.

But then, the quilt would not leave me alone. It stared at me and begged me to work on it. It was about 2/3 complete from what it is now. It was probably meant to be a twin, but Jamie needed a full size. There was a 4 block area in one of the corners that needed to be made and put in. There were also safety pins in various area (probably pointing out areas that Annie wanted to fix). I debated fixing them. Annie was a perfectionist and I knew she would have redone areas so they were right, but at the same time, I wanted it to be Annie's work, so I simply sewed up any unpicked areas and left the imperfections there. I also increased the size. I figured it needed another row or two to make it the planned size. Then thinking about the size of Jamie's bed, I thought maybe I could add a little more, plus some borders and make it a full size. It might be cutting it close on the green. Would there be enough?

Whew! Just right, but then as I sewed them on, I realized I had miscounted and I needed 4 more squares and didn't have any more green! Oh, no! What to do? Well, maybe I have something in my vast accumulated fabric that would work. There are two large bins in my bedroom with greens and browns (given to me by someone totally unrelated to this quilt or anyone involved). Maybe, just maybe... I went through both. Nothing. Oh, no. Please, oh, please let me find something that would work! Even if it's not the same fabric, something that is the same color that would blend well enough. I went through the bins again. And at the bottom of the second bin, second time through, was a fat quarter of that green fabric. Obviously, to me, from a different run of the fabric, but you have to know what to look for to see the difference. Oh, thank you, thank you! Then it hit me, Annie wanted Jamie to have this quilt. I was getting some help here and I better get busy on it. I finished the top and went looking for a back. There, in Annie's fabric was perfect backing fabric for this quilt. Maybe she had bought it for this quilt, who knows, but it was still perfect. Was there other help that I'm not aware of or can't remember? At this point, I'd say, "probably."  Too many coincidences to call them such.

Then came the quilting. As you can see in the picture above, there's a lot of fulness in places when keeping the edges square. Possibly this was the kind of stuff that Annie would have been trying to fix, but I did my best to solve it with the quilting.

You can see there is still a bit of fullness still visible between the feathers, but considering what it looked like before the quilting, I think it's pretty OK now.

Below is a little video I took while quilting the feathers. I don't have a good way to record video while quilting, so I'm holding it in my hand while moving the machine. Makes for some wobbly filming and stitching. 

The quilting design I took from a picture I found on Pinterest (I think), but didn't pin it, so when I went looking for it again, I couldn't find it. I had jotted down some ideas from the picture and would love to give credit where credit is due, but I can't find it. My apologies to the one who came up with a design like this. It was by far the best idea out there for this quilt that needed something to show the love of a friend from the other side to one on this side. Proud and humbled to be a part of Annie's gift to Jamie.