Mary Kate Dannaher and Nugget

Sunday, I went over to Kate's and spent half a day quilting. I finished my Mom's quilt and I named it Mary Kate Dannaher. It gets it's name from "The Quiet Man" starring John Wayne and Maureen O'Hara. They made five movies together. As characters and real people, they always seemed like equals. One of my Dad's favorite movies was True Grit and that's what I named the quilt that I made for him while he was in ICU at the hospital. He never got to see the quilt in really life, just a picture. I always intended to make its companion for my mother, and now it's finally finished. It only seemed appropriate to name it something related to the Duke. The label reads:

"Mary Kate Dannaher - "Come a-runnin'? I'm no woman to be honked at and come a-runnin'!" This is the companion quilt to True Grit. Maureen O'Hara and John Wayne were always equal partners in all the movies they made together, just like my Mom and Dad."

This quilt will now live at my Mom's house with True Grit, side by side. I even included a patch of the blue fabric I used in True Grit.

These two quilts represent so much of what has happened to me in the last 4 months. They began as a way for me to cope with the stress of the fragility of the lives of my children and niece and the mortality of my father. Brown bag after brown bag of 5" squares from a fabric exchange a couple of years ago in my quilt guild provided the material to make countless half square triangles. I'll be honest, I didn't square anything up, so when I started putting the squares together some of the points don't line up(and I don't care). But it was the process of marking all those squares on the diagonal and feeding them one after another through my machine that would often run through my head as I tried to fall to asleep at night during those months. And then having the "job" of putting them all together to make a quilt for my Dad, I was doing something even as I stood by helplessly day after day watching his ups and downs in ICU. Then after he passed away, having that quilt as a memorial for him and making something for my Mom. Something that represents them as a pair. Now to quote Forrest Gump,"That's all I have to say about that."

Now to close this post with a smile. Nugget made her first quilt today. She's been bit by the Quilting Bug like her sister and I. I forsee another Hello Kitty sewing machine under the Christmas tree this year since Santa's budget for my Bernina has been cut and the trickle down plan effected. Here's Nugget and her quilt:
I've been told it's for Kit, Kit's cousin from China (Mushu), and Kit's sister(Snowball). She's so proud of herself. In fact, she just came and told me, she can't wait to sew some more and "would you please stop blogging about me and my quilt and come sew!"
The batiks were easy for her to work with. She didn't have to worry about right sides and wrong sides.