The Story of "Affirmation" (2012)

It's funny how sometimes, no matter how much you try to plan, things will only come together at the last minute.  That was the case with "Affirmation".

As I remember it, this quilt was intended to be a birthday gift for my best friend.  She had made mention of an Amy Butler kaleidoscope quilt that she liked and I knew she would never attempt to make it herself, so I decided to make it for her as a gift.  After I looked at the pattern, I decided that I too, would never attempt to make that quilt.  Too many pieces and more instructions than I cared to deal with, so I started to look for similar, much more simple options.  Don't get me wrong, if I thought her heart was set on that exact pattern, I would'lve attempted it for her, but I knew that she had probably only mentioned the pattern in passing and wouldn't remember it unless I brought it up again.

I came across a quilt by Jacquie Gering that I absolutely fell in love with and decided to attempt something similar.  I found the instructions on how to make the string pieced block and I was off to the races.

I decided that the quilt needed to be extra bright, which is completely counter to what I perceive to be her taste, so I chose Kona Slate to calm it down a bit.  I was Facebooking (yes, I just created a verb) much more than I was blogging at the time and came up with the working code name "The Ridiculously Bright and Crazy Quilt" so that I could talk about the process of making the quilt.

During the time that I was piecing the quilt, my friend learned that her husband was being deployed again.  For some reason, she was having more difficulty with the idea of this deployment than with the others she had already endured.  I wasn't sure why this one was different for her, but I could tell how heavy it was for her and I wanted her to know that she had what it took to get through it.

That same year, the movie "The Help" was released in theaters.  My friend saw it before me and convinced me to see it.  She was truly moved by the character Aibileen telling the little girl "You is kind. You is smart.  You is important."

Just as I was finishing the quilt top, I remembered how that scene impressed her and decided to embroider it around the border of the quilt.  While it wasn't the exact message I wanted to send her at that time, I believed she would understand my sentiment.  All I knew for sure is that she had doubts and I wanted to reassure her.  That is how the quilt got its name.

When I made the decision to include the words, there was no border on the quilt, so I had to add one.  I only had scraps left but figured out a way to make the leftovers work for me.  I loved the way it turned out and will probably make it my go-to border whenever I need to add one to another quilt.

While stitching those words, I thought about the times me and my friend sat in class together and tried to understand what was going on.  I thought about how we planned her wedding during exam season.  I thought about how we studied for the bar exam together.  I thought about how I admired her resilience, her independence, her self confidence, her positive attitude, her strength. I hoped that my stitches would communicate to her how much I appreciate her and how confident I was that she would make it through this deployment and that her family was going to be just fine.

When I finished the embroidery, I learned that my longarm quilter was completely backed up and I wasn't completely confident that she would quilt it the way I wanted, so I decided to make an attempt at hand quilting it. I had never hand quilted anything before and I have no idea what made me think I could or why I was brave enough to attempt it on a quilt top that took me a very long time to finish.

But I did it and couldn't have been more proud of the result.

The quilt took way longer than I thought it would, and it ended up being a Christmas present. The timing ended up being perfect because her husband was deployed around that time.

The post script to this story is interesting.  It turned out that my friend was right to feel uneasy about the deployment.  Her husband was put in serious harms way twice, but survived each incident relatively unscathed.  The family is in the process of moving right now.  They will be living in a much smaller space for the next year and so a number of things will spend the year in storage.  They decided that they can't take their entire collection of quilts.  She decided that "Affirmation" was one of the quilts that had to travel with her.  When the movers came to box up the contents of her house, the quilt was mistakenly packed away. As much as she hates to pack, she went through an already packed and sealed box to find the quilt so that it would not get put into storage.  I'm touched by how much she loves that quilt.