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At the end of December 1998 and into January 1999, my right lung got so bad with breathing difficulties that I had to have a pleura drain inserted into my lung so fluid could be drained off. The cancer also spread to my hip bone and I had to have a hip replacement operation in January at Yale New Haven Hospital. I was there for one week and then moved to Branford Hills Convalescent Home in Branford, Connecticut for recuperation and physical therapy for two weeks. Dr. Arthur Levy changed my chemotherapy to Taxotere and Aredia. This treatment has shown some improvement.
While I was in Branford Hills, I got a letter from Carol Roggy. Carol didn't know I was in the hospital when she sent the letter with the fabric swatches in it. Last year, for the Time and Talent Silent Auction Fundraiser at First Congregational Church in Guilford, Connecticut, I offered for one quilt to be made by me. The recipient is to bid the value and I will provide the design, time, and materials. Carol Roggy silent bid on this offer that night and won. Some time later that year, I got a phone call from Carol and we talked about quilt ideas and I told her about the Shoreline Quilters' Guild Quilt Show to be held at Mercy School in Madison, Connecticut, and she went there to get ideas. After the show, she called me and decided that she wanted a quilt for her daughter. I told her the best thing to do was to go to Wal Mart in Branford and pick four fabrics of her liking and let me know and I would pick up the fabric.
So, Carol's letter arrived. Little did Carol know was that this was the best medicine I could have ever received. I could not wait to get out of recuperation and begin this quilt! During my convalescence at home, I began to work on this sweet quilt. Many people stopped by and saw me working on this quilt. It took me the month of February to get it done. I was inspired to put the hearts on it because of Valentine's Day. As I got closer to completing the quilt, I could not find Carol's letter that had her phone number to tell her the quilt was done.
On the first Sunday in March, I was in Fellowship Hall having tea and socializing with friends, when Carol walked up to me. She said "Hi Gen." I said, "Hi. And you are?" She said, "I'm Carol." I said, "Oh, Carol, I've been looking for you." "She said, "Please let me tell you something. When I found out you were in the hospital, I asked Jill Brown to ask you to disregard my letter." I laughed and said, "Oh, Carol, have I a surprise for you. The quilt is done and I lost your phone number. This is great to see you today because the quilt is ready but I didn't know your daughter's name so I could put the quilt label on it." I told Carol about working on the quilt and getting it ready for her. Since it was my right leg, I told her how I had to lift my foot up and put in on the sewing machine foot pedal to work on it. "She said, "Gen, I do believe you are a quilting animal." I said, "Yes, that about describes me."
I told Carol I would bring the quilt to church the next Sunday. "She said, "Would you like to meet my daughter?" I turned around and saw the sweetest, cutest little 4 ½ year old girl in a whisper pink dress and my eyes could only see a Valentine. Carol said to her daughter, "Carly, this is the lady who had made a quilt for you." The little girl looked up at me and hugged her mother. Carol wrote down her daughter's full name and gave me her phone number. I said to Carol, "Now that I have met your daughter I am ready to part with the quilt, but I don't want to tell you anything about what it looks like. Only when you see it." I went to Calico Alley in Guilford, Connecticut to purchase the quilt label and embroidered it.
The next Sunday morning, I got a phone call before church. Carol said that both of her vehicles were broken down, one with a flat tire and one with a dead battery. She said she couldn't possibly make it to church. I said I would be glad to bring the quilt to her house after church. She gave me directions and off we went to her house.
Their house is a Cape Cod with a full length glass front door in the middle. On each side of the front door are two large full length windows. Bill, Katie and I brought the quilt in. There were two couches in the living room each one facing each other. I put the quilt across the one couch and sat opposite it on the other couch. Carly came running in to see it. Carol marveled at how beautiful it was and said that she really wanted to hang it on Carly's wall that it was too pretty to use. I could see Carly eyeing this quilt and marching around and around the sofa, full of exuberance.
I feel compelled to give a speech about the love of quilts and how they should be loved, hugged, sat on and played with and fully used to get the complete value of it. I told her the story of Jessica's quilt and how loved her quilt is. Carly was not missing a word of what I said and then took a huge leap onto the quilt on the couch. "You see," I said to Carol, "the love is already beginning."
It was time for us to go, so we said our good-byes and as Bill was backing out of the driveway, I could see through the front door and the windows, this whirlwind of pink and purple sailing around the house on Carly's shoulders. That particular sight will never leave my memory.
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Katie wanted a flannel quilt and I couldn't pass up the great prices at Wal Mart for flannels for one dollar a yard. I bought seven pastel prints at one yard each. I used the top sheet of her flannel sheet set for the backing cloth. I had some batting already, so this was an easy one to do. String tied and stacked upon Katie's bed is another quilt.
Margaret McGarry of the Shoreline Quilters' Guild brought me this beautiful quilt as a gift from the Community Quilters Group while I was recuperating from the hip replacement operation. I was so deeply touched by this gesture.
I wanted to do something special for Kate Emswiler for her graduation. She brought me two beautiful angel pictures while I was recuperating this winter.
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What fun it has been to make this quilt for Jessica's high school graduation. I loved choosing the fabrics to especially suit her. It was given to her on the Friday after graduation at the Olive Garden Restaurant in Milford, Connecticut, which is her favorite place. Each quilt block represents a month of the year. Katie designed the Strawberry quilting motif for each corner of the quilt.
I was doing the Thimbleberries block of the month and have actually made a total of five quilt tops. One for Jessica which is complete. And one for Jeff, Andrea, and Katie are ready for their graduation times. The Thimbleberries quilt is now pinned and ready to put the quilting stitches on for a quilt for Bill and I.
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On one July weekend, this Blue and Sunshine Yellow Quilt was completed. About a week prior, Jeanie phoned me and said that she wanted to make a special quilt for her son Joshua's girlfriend Kate and wanted my help. Every week, Jeanie would express her Concern during Joys and Concerns at First Church about Kate who was in the hospital with a serious setback with Crone's Disease. We planned to meet on Saturday. I told her to purchase the fabrics that she wanted and we would come up with something.
Jeanie arrived and we started to look through books and magazines for about an hour. I asked Jeanie if she was in a hurry to get this done and did she want to look at some of the quilt tops that I have already. I brought downstairs the quilt top that I call My Rotary Cutter quilt. It's little squares made into quilt blocks. Jeanie loved it. We proceeded to figure out how many squares to make and started rotary cutting.
Jeanie phoned her house and her son Joshua answered. Jeanie wanted Joshua to bring over her sewing machine because she needed it. Jeanie told him on the phone what her plans were for a quilt for Kate and he came right over with the sewing machine. We sent Joshua out to get the extra fabric that we needed for the now planned borders. He was intrigued with what we were doing and asked when could it possibly be completed. We said we would try our best and see if it could be complete by Sunday night. No promises, but we'd try.
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Bill kept supplying us with breakfast, lunch, and dinner. We only took small breaks. We ended Saturday evening with the quilt blocks ready to assemble to each other and realized we had made a placement mistake. It was late, and Jeanie took the blocks home and would return the next morning early.
Sunday morning rolled around and we began again. Jeanie had rearranged the quilt blocks and we were ready to get things rolling. The quilt top was assembled by one o'clock in the afternoon with Joshua stopping by to see the progress. We told him he had to help with the string tying if it was to be done by six o'clock. Joshua started string tying with us. He got about four rows done with us and Jan Sachs stopped in. She made us lunch and helped us complete the string tying.
Jeanie finished the binding at about six o'clock and Joshua came by. He scooped up the quilt and went on his way to see Kate. We calculated that we had put in twenty-five hours on this quilt. It was worth every moment to work with each other and accomplish this special task.
Jeanie phoned me the next day and we were elated with our accomplishment and to make it even more special, Kate was able to come out of the hospital that Tuesday.
Here are Kate's mother's words of thanks: To Jeanie and Gen, In the work we do with our hands, women become threaded in spirit, I feel. Hands that have separated and washed clothes, cooked thousands of nurturing meals, touched a baby's skin and smelled what is wordless, worried and worried, the way we do trying to make our children's health and spirits whole and to hold ourselves together as we do it.
| The quilt is beautiful to Kate into a wordless place - she could not speak when she saw it, but wrapped herself in it and gained energy to move more easily out of the entrapment of her illness. I think it will always be a source of energy for her.
As we moved out of the New London Harbor on our trip that we had held in front of us for a long time, I thought of you both. No words can say it, but I know as women with hands full of love that you can feel my mother-gratitude, as two kindred spirits. Please accept these slowly evolving turtles that seem to me an ultimate symbol of the time it takes for all of us to become whole. Love to you both, from my heart into yours, Allie. |
"Can you make quilts?" Dan Upham, Jeff's friend, said to me one day as he heard me talking about quilts.
"Yes" I said.
"Can you make anything?"
"Yes" I said, wondering what the challenge was going to be.
"Like a logo?"
"Yes. I'd be glad to make you a quilt."
"You would?"
"Sure."
"Well, there's this logo that I like."
"I can applique it."
"I'll get the logo over to you soon."
A few months went by and both Jeff and Dan and others were working on the Guilford High School spring musical "Damn Yankees" and working on "All in the Timing" for the Connecticut Drama Association competition. I would ask Dan from time to time if he had the logo ready and when could he bring it to me. Time was running a little short to complete a quilt for him by the Guilford High School 1999 graduation and I was working on other quilts and I asked him when he was going away to college, "Not until late August."
One day, Jeff brought home a grey tee-shirt from Dan that had an International Mountain Biking Association logo (about two inches in diameter) in the center on it.
I went to the Spanish Junior Honor Society induction for Andrea at the high school that evening and Dan Upham was there. Before the ceremony began, I seized the opportunity to talk with Dan. I asked him a bunch of questions about colors and told him my idea about the Moon Over Mountain style quilt block that I had wanted to put into a quilt. Dan answered my questions, "I like mountain biking a lot. I like the outdoors. I like earth colors mostly." I sketched him a quick picture with the logo in the middle with the quilt blocks around the edges. He thought about it and asked "What about a night sky? What about a sunset?"
"I'll see what I can do!" was all I said. I had brought home some fabric when I went to Wisconsin in April that was perfect for the mountains, one beige print and one red print with bears, moose, little pine trees and little log cabins on it. I went to Jo-Ann's Fabric in Branford and found the grey moon crater fabric for the large center piece and the moons. I bought jet black for the rest of the logo. I found the perfect night sky fabric. I went to Wal-Mart in Branford and found the perfect sunset fabric (what a fabulous find!) and the yellow fabric for the sun was in my fabric stash. The backing fabric is navy blue and beige plaid.
I had the quilt top ready and the grey center just staring me in the face on the weekend of July 4 (the hottest weekend of the year). This was the morning to tackle the construction of the logo that was to be approximately 35 inches around to fit in the 42 inch square. I enlisted Bill's help in constructing the 28 inch round circle to be made out of newspaper print. Bill helped with the sketching of the sprocket shape around the edge explaining that it really was a parabola and not an outer half-circle. I sketched the center part of the logo and proceeded to cut the fabric out. It was done and ready to applique. It took about three hours to pin. The next day, the logo was stitched and the quilt top was ready to be pin basted.
I keep my quilting table stored in my bedroom, which is the perfect place. With the air conditioning on and my table ready, I clamped the quilt layers together and pin basted. It took about three hours. Jeff came in to the house with Kate, Dan, and Virginia to head over to swim at Leete's Island. I told Dan his quilt was being worked on and he couldn't possibly get a glimpse of it yet. I returned his tee-shirt to him. I finished the quilt on July 15.
Jeff and Dan had been rehearsing for the Clinton Family Theater play "Babes in Arms" since school got out and the play began on Thursday. I found out from Jeff about the double casting with Jeff performing Lee Calhoun on Thursday and Saturday and Dan performing Valentine White on Friday and Sunday. Bill, Katie, Andrea, Ron, Jennifer, Patrick and I went Thursday. I saw Dan there after the play and told him the quilt was ready. I got two tickets from Dave and Kathleen Jones for Friday night because Bill and I wanted to see Dave's performance and also wanted to give Dan his quilt. During intermission, Bill spotted Dan's mom and I got a chance to speak with her and tell her what was going to happen after the show. We brought the quilt down to the Green Room and I handed it over to Dan.
He looked at me and said, "Can I look at it now?"
"Yes."
Dan's thank you note reads as follows:
Dear Mrs. Bailey, Words cannot express how much I love you and my quilt, so this will be brief. Your labor of love is about the nicest thing any one person has ever done for me. The design is exactly what I had in mind, and I appreciate to no end that you took the time to construct my newest prized possession. Also, I feel I must thank you for you endless kindness, compassion, and understanding on a daily basis. You are more than my best friend's mother, I consider you a friend, too. Enjoy the rest of the summer, Love, Dan. |
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Jessica came into the house bursting with an idea, I could just see it. "Aunt Gen, do you think you could help me make a quilt for my friend, Maureen?"
"Sure, Jess, what do you have in mind?"
"I bought a cute cow print fabric at the store. Maureen is going to be away all next week. Do you think we could finish it in one week?"
"Sure, Jess, but you have to do most of the work."
"Okay, tell me what to do."
"Well, the fastest thing to do is to get a white sheet. You say it has to be double bed size? Okay, get a double bed flat sheet. Use that for the top. The black and white cow print fabric can be your backing fabric. I'm going to have to machine quilt it for speed, but that'll be okay. I have leftover black binding already made for the edge. Next, we'll gather a few more cow print fabrics. I know where I can get some."
Jessica said, "I want to make cow spots on the front."
"The best way to adhere them down is to get Ultra Hold Heat 'n Bond and fuse the fabric down. I'll show you and you can do it."
Jessica went shopping. She got the backing fabric, the batting, the Heat 'n Bond, and some white thread and found more cow print fabrics.
Sure enough, she diligently worked all week on this and I did the machine work. The cow spots were also zigzagged down for added security. The machine quilting was a meandering line around all the spots.
Maureen came back from her trip and Jessica had told her that she had a surprise for her. She brought Maureen over to our house so I could see her get the quilt. She hugged her new quilt so tightly. What are friends for? Jessica knows.
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In August 1999, the chemotherapy Taxotere stopped working. Dr. Levy changed my chemotherapy to Navelbine and Mitomycin and continuing me on Aredia for the bones. Right now, I don't know what is working, but I am keeping the faith. In the meantime, I keep quilting.
I finished the I Spy Quilt. I collected many of the fabrics from The Scrap Club, which is a spin-off club from the Shoreline Quilters' Guild. This club meets once a month. There are 200 different I Spy fabrics in this quilt. Jeanie helped me string tie the I Spy.
Jan helped me pin My Rotary Cutter quilt. When I first purchased my rotary cutter, I cut up all my fabric and piled it into three big shoe boxes labeled: light, medium and dark fabrics. I had a lot of fun matching colors and putting the quilt top together. I machine quilted it and am pleased with the results.
I usually don't like to machine quilt, but I cannot hand-quilt just yet because my fingernails have to heal from the chemotherapy.
In September 1999, the First Congregational Church held a reception after church in Fellowship Hall to honor my eighteen years of volunteer work and to honor me.
In church, Daphne Stitt made an announcement that the Called to Care program was beginning again, and that I, Gen Bailey, get to hold onto the Called to Care Bear for one month! This was the first day of Church School to begin and there were lots of wiggly, excited children in the church pews. I looked around and I was just as wiggly and excited to see them. Elaine Lincoln and I have sixth grade for Church School this year.
I was presented with a dozen red roses by Rev. Kendrick Norris and Jeanie presented me with an endearing memory book. Jan Sachs also mentioned that I had inspired her to make 501 ABC quilts over the past two years.
In the audience that day, was Janet Shoemaker, who was so moved by the speeches that she sent over 100 yards of fabrics she had acquired to do with whatever I wished. I sent one third of the fabric to a friend who is making exquisite floral quilts, and one third to Hats for Kids with Cancer at Yale, and one third to Quilter's Habitat for ABC Quilts on Make a Difference Day in Branford. Then Janet, through excellent networking, found another source of fabric and I have acquired four huge boxes of fabric. I cannot wait to dive into it and see what magic happens with it! Janet also sent me a new friend, Suzanne Waters. She and have seen each other over the past couple of years while the children have been involved in theater at the high school. We met for tea at my house and she is inspired to begin quilting again. We exchanged life stories and have made a plan to work on quilting projects together with the emphasis of giving to others. This is another story that will unfold in the near future.
In the meantime, Rev. Nancy Leckerling phoned me and asked me if was working on a quilt square for the Amistad Friendship Quilt Project. Awhile ago, there was an announcement in the Church Bulletin about this effort and I filed it away for future reference since the deadline is really for February 2000. Well, it turns out that in mid-October, the Connecticut Conference UCC Annual Meeting was to be held in New London this year, and each minister was asked to bring a quilt square for presentation at the Amistad Blessing Service.
I had my idea of what I wanted to do kicking around in my head and was beginning to think about fabric colors and such, so I told Nancy I would love to complete it for her by the day she needed it, that I loved a deadline to work by!
The Amistad Friendship Quilt Project is a community effort to provide imaginative quilts for the bunks of the schooner, Amistad, currently under construction at Mystic Seaport in Mystic, Connecticut. Quilt blocks will be created and contributed by individuals from around the world, then assembled and donated to the ship, to provide warmth to students and crew during overnight educational programs. Each quilt block will be documented and the finished quilts will be displayed to the public prior to their use as bedcovers. This effort, promoted by Montgomery College, the largest community college in the state of Maryland, Amistad America, Inc. and Mystic Seaport, will reflect a primary goal of the Amistad project, to unite people of diverse cultural backgrounds in the achievement of a common goal. I am definitely excited about being a part of the endeavor and that my quilt square has been blessed!
I have been working on the Harvest Fair Quilt. This is the first quilt ever to be done for the Harvest Fair in a collaborative effort. At the beginning of summer, the Quilter's Group of the First Congregational Church, met to cut out the pieces for the squares. Elaine Lincoln picked out the fabric and the Ohio star pattern. We put the pieces in 48 baggies and each one of took a set and over the summer, sewed them together and got them back to Elaine. Elaine sewed the quilt squares together and layered it. At the end of September, there was a meeting and various members signed up to take the quilt to work on for five days and then pass it to the next person. I got a phone call from Peggy Benton and said I was next on the list and she brought the quilt over. She also brought over a half dozen eggs that her new chickens laid. It was such a cozy, farm-community feeling that day.
Another evening, I went over to Elaine Lincoln's house and met up with Barbara Bishop and Sharon Boulton to design the quilting to be done in the borders of the quilt. I brought over my quarter-inch masking tape and Elaine and Barbara measured and set up the quilting lines. Everyone has been busy selling the tickets!
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On Tuesday, October 12, 1999, a New Haven Register article has been written about me. Sandi Kahn Shelton, Register Staff Reporter, wrote as follows:
Click Here to read the October 12, 1999 article.
Click Here to read the April 23, 2000 follow-up article.
As I take a look around my home, there are quilts hanging on the walls, there are quilts draped over the couches, there are quilts on end tables, and there are quilts stacked high on everyone's beds, I am thrilled that life has led me in the direction of quilting. There is no better way to express oneself than through magic of creating quilts.
There is no end to a quilter's dream and no way to end this book than to tell you that - there always will be - one more quilt.
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