Healing by Quilting and the WTC Pentagon PA Memorial Quilts

I just posted a story on our Nifty Fifty Breast Cancer Survivor Page.  Many of us who quilt are the first ones to step forward and help anyone in need through sewing a quilt.  Whether it is just making one quilt block for a huge project like the WTC Pentagon PA Memorial Quilt

 or sewing together a quilt for an inidiviual who is hurting, sick or in need of support.   Or it could just be for a yearly local charity quilt. But it is a known fact that quilters make quilts to help others heal.  And in turn it helps the quilter deal with the other's losses. 

What happens though when the quilter is the one in need and is hurting through personal tragedy?  Many times that quilter actually stops sewing and quilting.   I don't really know why this happens but I have seen it many times.  I myself have had a few family tragedies the past four years and I just realized after reading the story I posted on our Breast Cancer Survivor Page that I have not been quilting like I used to.

  I think I got a little boost today to inspire my quilting.  I was one of the organizer of the WTC Pentagon PA Memorial Quilt.  This project received almost 20,000 quilt blocks to honor the 9/11 victims.
We used 7500 quilt blocks in the original quilt panels and we donated some to other WTC quilt projects.

I organized the volunteers to sew the remaining 7,000 quilt blocks into Honor Banners and Charity Quilts.  The Honor Banner Quilts were dontated to the Military, Firefighters, EMTs, Churches, Rescue Dogs, Port Authority, Pentagon, Airlines and Shanksville PA. 

The Honor Banner Quilt which was Donated to the Pentagon

All Honor Banner Quilts used this quilt block as it's center block.  It represented NY, PA, the Pentagon and the first responders.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 I received a phone call from one of volunteers this past week. Jeanne still had two of the charity quilts at her house from our project. She had held onto them for the past ten years.  She had made many quilts for the project and these were the last two.

She was not comfortable about mailing them to Arizona because our organizer of the  project Amy Sue Leasure had suddenly passed away.  She did not know who was going to take over the project so she kept them safe at her house.  She emailed me a few weeks ago wanting to know what she should do with the quilts.  I asked if she would bring them to me so I could find a home for them locally.

She arrived today with these beautiful quilts.  The quilt blocks are red, white and blue stars and are signed by their makers.  There are even two quilt blocks from France.  These two quilts will be at our local 9/11 ceremony at the Stafford Courthouse tomorrow.

Quilt Block from France

Another Quilt Block sent from France

I photographed the quilts and I will be making a label for them. These quilts have inspired me to get back to quilting. You can learn more about the WTC Pentagon PA Memorial Quilts on Facebook.  Here is a link to the video  https://www.facebook.com/video/video.php?v=1485273825124