Quilt #85 Easton Martin donated by Toni's Tribe

Quilt #85 was given to celebrate the birth of Easton Martin. It has a story that reaches back more than a year and underscores the richness of sisterhood.

Last year I was working on this quilt for the Hess family, another Duncan Project recipient. I had sewn the individual half-square triangles and went to my dear friend Toni Martin's to spend the day sewing the blocks together to finish the quilt top. We sewed all day and were just getting ready to put the large sections together when it became apparent that I had made a few mistakes that left a gaping section in the quilt right in the center.

We tried re configuring the sections to see if there was a way to "make it work." We puzzled for almost half hour when Toni's son stopped by with her darling, then 4 years old, granddaughter Kennadee. We all smiled as Kennadee fearlessly jumped right in finding a way to solve this quilt puzzle. Surprisingly she came up with a perfect solution. Only issue is the quilt would have been about half the intended size (when I returned home I found a sad singular square had been left on my sewing table causing the whole fiasco).

Quilt #67 sewn with Toni

I left Toni's house in frustration, knowing I had exacerbated the problem by impetuously re-cutting some of the squares only making the problem worse. Quilts do not always come together easily. Toni vowed to keep working on the quilt if I could get my hands on more fabric. I felt a certain urgency to get a quilt finished for the Hess family. A couple of days later I found another quilt kit  and Toni and I spent a whole day finishing this quilt top.

I ordered more fabric for Quilt #85 and when it arrived, I packed it away with the unfinished quilt to be completed sometime in the future.

Fast forward 9 months later and our dear Toni shares with us that she has been diagnosed with Stage 4 Melanoma. Lots of ups and downs as Toni battles this awful disease.

Toni is an amazing quilter and has sewn beautiful quilts for each of her grandchildren as they were born. As life would have it, Toni had two new grandchildren due at the time of her diagnosis. As her treatment progressed, it became apparent that Toni would need all of her energy for her cancer treatment. Toni would sew again but in this season, it was nearly impossible.

A sweet sister friend and daughter-in-law took over the completion of a quilt for the first of the two grandchildren born, a sweet baby girl named Wrigley.

One day it came to my mind, that we had a quilt with Toni's love already in the stitches. It just  needed a little creative re-working. I felt inspired that we should wanted to find a way to finish this one for Toni's new grandson Easton.

I pulled out the quilt and tried numerous times to determine how to make it whole. The more I looked at the pattern, the more frustrated I became. I really wanted to do this but my limited skill was holding me back.

Enter two more members of Toni's tribe, seasoned quilters, Mary Duke and Terry Powell. They looked at the quilt top with fresh eyes. They threw away the pattern and used their own skill to finish the quilt top. They had it finished in a matter of a couple hours. There is a huge life lesson here.

Many other quilting sisters added their stitches to the binding and it was completed and given to baby Easton. Toni's family and friends are working on another darling quilt for Easton that Toni had originally envisioned.  Meanwhile, this quilt is a testament to the depth, beauty and strength of Toni's sister tribe.

There is Toni's love and that of so many who love her and her entire family in these stitches.