A Crafter's Life

Impromptu Quilt Gifting

tierneycreates: a fusion of textiles and smiles

I am on Day 12 of daily posts as part of the challenge I set for myself for the month of October in celebration of my blog’s 5th anniversary to post everyday for the 31 days of October.

If you count the post I made on Sept. 30th then I am actually at 13 days straight of daily posts!

So far I haven’t had to pull from my 5 years of post archives as I thought I might have to by now. Today I originally planned a semi-follow-up to yesterday’s post Shinrin-Yoku: The Japanese Art and Science of Forest Bathing, but then something cool happened yesterday afternoon that I wanted to share: Impromptu Quilt Gifting.

When the Moment Feels Right…

6 or so years ago I made this quilt from scraps and leftover blocks from flannel quilts I made during my early years of quilting:

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2 years ago I took it out of “quilt rotation” at my house and put it away in the closet. You see after 18 years of quilting I have a lot of quilts in rotation at my house!

Earlier this year I took the quilt out of the closet to decide what to do with it – I did not want it to just live in the closet – it is a nice cozy quilt that someone could enjoy. It was not the style of any of my family members or close friends. So I put it back in the closet.

Well yesterday this quilt discovered its new forever home at the spur of the moment.

I am a full-time telecommuter for my pay-the-bills-job. Yesterday afternoon I had a virtual meeting with a new colleague (the unit I work on recently transferred into her department). She mentioned during our meeting that she heard I was a quilter and wondered if I she could commission me to make a quilt for her daughter.

Her 12 year old daughter has a complex illness and is continually in and out of the hospital or extensive ongoing outpatient visits and treatment. While in the hospital or in outpatient treatment rooms, she is cold and the blankets they provide never really keep her warm plus they are impersonal communal blankets.

What she wanted for her daughter is her own quilt to take with her to keep her warm and cozy while she endures extensive ongoing medical treatments and evaluations.

I wanted to help but I do not have the bandwidth or interest at this point to do a commission quilt and offered to refer her to one of my quilting friends who might be interested. Then I remembered that I had a quilt currently available. So I asked her did she need a custom quilt and she replied no – she just wanted a cozy quilt for daughter.

I texted her a photo of the quilt and offered it as a gift for her daughter to keep her cozy during her treatments. My colleague immediately said yes and was overwhelmed with my impromptu offer. The amazing thing was that the quilt is in her daughter’s favorite colors!

I sewed a special label on the back of the quilt with her daughter’s name to reinforce that this was her very own quilt and it is packaged up for shipping out today:

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The cool thing about this quilt is I think it has a lot of “love energy” contained in it because it is made from scraps and leftover blocks from quilts made for people I love in my life.

I hope that positive energy is felt by my colleague’s daughter as she is wrapped up in the quilt.

This make me think of the Artist Statement I wrote for my art quilt, The Recycled Love (see post The Recycled Love) that summarizes how I generally feel about quilts:

The first law of thermodynamics states that the total amount of energy in a system cannot be created nor destroyed, it can only be changed from one form to another. A quilt is made from changing the existing “love energy” from the quilt maker’s heart into a pieced textile; ultimately recycling that love energy into the quilt’s recipient heart

The moment felt right yesterday afternoon for some impromptu quilt gifting.

Published by tierneycreates: a fusion of textiles and smiles

Quilter, crafter, obsessive tea drinker and lover of all furry creatures (especially dogs and cats) - join me on my tierneycreates blog as I share stories from "A Crafter's Life".

38 thoughts on “Impromptu Quilt Gifting”

  5. Ah, yes! Sharing our hard work, skills, and talents with someone who needs comfort is waaaay more rewarding than the money received from a commission. A lesbian couple in my church lost their home to a fire, and one of my “closet” quilts just burned a hole in my heart until I gave it to them. This offered some comfort and reminder of grandmothers’ quilts as well as affirmation of my acceptance of them.

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  18. I love this! I have a couple of “ready to go” quilts that I made without an idea where they will end up. Just waiting for that moment like you described to send them to their new home.

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  19. Pingback: “Seeds” and My Secret Dream – tierneycreates

  20. I am not a very prolific quilter, but I love that moment when someone I know sees one of my quilts, and says, “Oh, is that one for me?” and I can say, “Yes! Take it home with you!” It is a joy to know it is going to its perfect home.
    Your quilt will bring joy not only to the girl, but to the staff who works with her — a moment of color and texture in their sterile surroundings, a topic of conversation beyond the difficult topics of illness and procedures, happy associations of other quilts and quilters they have known. Don’t we just wish we could do that for everyone!

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    1. Thanks so much for alll your comments 🙂
      Her mom told me that her daughter takes the quilt around everywhere with her in the house and won’t let anyone else use it!n:-)

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