Postage Stamp Quilt Project

One of the greatest things about quilting is that it brings people of different generations together. Way back in the early 1980s when I was a young English teacher and yearbook adviser, I had a student, Amie, who was my yearbook editor. In the 2 or 3 years that I taught her, our first child was born, and Amie's mother became Adam's babysitter. So as far as teacher/student relationships go, ours was closer than most.

In the intervening years, we exchanged Christmas cards, birth announcements; graduation pictures, etc. She married and had 2 daughters, while my husband and I added 2 daughters to join Adam. Gradually, there didn't seem to be a generational difference anymore! My youngest is younger than hers!

Fast forward 25+ years...in the Christmas card I received from Amie this past Christmas, she included a note explaining a project she was going to tackle: a postage stamp quilt with every 1" square out of a different fabric - no repeats. She was requesting from her quilting friends scraps that they would otherwise throw away or hide away forever to be sent to her for use in her quilt! She has no pressing deadline, and seems to be perfectly willing to work on this for a good while, as donated scraps come in. She's keeping a record of all who donate scraps for inclusion on a tag she will attach to the back. I sent her a couple of "squishy" envelopes, and so have others, and here is her first block:

She writes that it took her an hour and 45 minutes to sew this together. She says she forgot to keep track of how long it took her to select and arrange fabrics! This is the first of 63 blocks she will make. Doing the math there (she did it; not me!), she will have 9,072 different fabrics in 1"squares pieced into this quilt.

Isn't that cool?

Since that picture was sent, she has made a second block. In her email she said, "I just completed block 2-only 61 left to go!! I feel really impowered having two finished. Now it doesn't seem like such a huge task. However, I am still perfecting my method of piecing. I find I get lost if I try to chain piece too many at once. And I really do stress over the fabric placement."

That sound so like her! I remember her attention to detail when she was the yearbook editor! Very much the one to catch the little things. Editors and quiltmakers have similar OCD tendencies, maybe! ;-)

Anyway, I am very pleased to send scraps that would otherwise go to waste off to Amie for her project. You Go Girl!!

TTFN!
Jayne