True Quilt of Love

I think all quilts are made with Love, but this one is special. Violette's Mom is a cat blogger, like me. That's how we "met." When we all heard about Violette's untimely death, everybody wanted to do something to help. Mom suggested everybody send her a 2" square of fabric, with their name written on it, and she would assemble the pieces into a quilt with which the baby would be wrapped when she was laid to rest.

It was quickly apparent that it would be difficult for everybody to make this happen, so one blogger offered to sign squares for everybody who emailed her. In the end, a local fabric store donated the fabrics, cut the squares, and our cat blogger spent several long hours writing all the names. Then the package was shipped to the family via overnight shipping.

In the interim, I made plans to attend the funeral. I didn't see how Violette's Mom would be able to put this together herself, given the circumstances, and offered my services to sew it up. I arrived Thursday evening and spent all day Friday, the day before the funeral, sewing.It was interesting. The squares the cat bloggers sent were perfect 2" squares, but the ones from the fabric store were anything but. They were "about 2" " in every sense of the word, slightly larger in each dimension and not "square." At first I tried trimming them, but realized quickly I'd never get it done.
So I just did the best I could, knowing the most important thing was the love with which the quilt was made.

Any quiltmaker worth her salt can make a quilt in a day. But I didn't have my sewing machine, my tools, a flat surface on which to work, a rotary cutter, or even a big ruler.

The ironing board was a portable one, and was set on the floor. I have at least one burn mark from the iron just above my knee.I sewed the pieces into pairs, then four patches, all the while trying to evenly distribute the colors and patterns. I enlisted a young cousin to help me cut the chains apart, and help match blocks together. The fours became eights. About midday the mail arrived, with a new batch of squares from the bloggers, and all day I received emails with more names to write on the extra blank squares I had received.
Without knowing exactly how many pieces there were, and with all the size variations, trying to get it all to make a rectangle was a challenge. I had brought a 1-1/2 yard piece of fabric with me, figuring the quilt might need fabric for the back. I used all of it, as well as another donated piece. I would make the quilt the way I usually make mine, without filling.
Finally, it all came together. It's about 40" by 54" or so. We never measured. I know there are well over 400 names.

I'll never see it again, but it ranks high as one of my proudest achievements.