Follow along with me as I participate in the 2024 Save Your Story Challenge by Quilt Alliance. You can find all of my blog posts that are part of this challenge.

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The final challenge has been issued for 2024! This topic could not be more appropriate for the month of December:

The final column in this text box is the easiest for me to start with a response – I’ve never received a quilt. No one has gifted me a quilt, nor has anyone made me a quilt. Maybe I will make myself one (and be sure to label it)!

Now for the middle column that asks about the quilts I make and give away… in my early years of quilting, the quilts I generated were gifts for family members, friends, and colleagues from work. The quilts would typically be for someone expecting a baby, or as an auction item for a fundraiser. I did sign these quilts (that was the extent of my label), and I do have noted in my master quilt listing who these quilts were shared with or donated to. But I never included washing/care instructions.

…and it seems that I still don’t! The most recent quilt I gave as a gift is the one shown here that I gave to the Executive Director of The Oceanography Society, Jenny Ramarui. I am completing my 2.5-year term as the Geological Oceanography Councilor for the TOS Council this December, and I wanted to thank Jenny for not only being an incredible leader for the organization, but for all of her mentoring and support when I started as a councilor. I used a TOS bandana as a centerpiece for the quilt, paired it with white fabric with white bubbles, and the light blue fabric around the border has a wave pattern (appropriate for an ocean-themed quilt!).

I presented Jenny with the quilt at the American Geophysical Union meeting in Washington DC last week, and she immediately decided to clip the quilt to the front of the TOS booth in the Exhibit Hall. The quilt was designed to be a small, hanging quilt – and immediately the quilt started serving in the role! As the current quilts I gift to people are designed as wall hangings, I will continue to sign/date/record them in my quilt log, but I don’t think I’ll include instructions for care and maintenance. The new owners of my quilts have the opportunity to use the quilts as they wish!

These are some images of additional mini quilts I have given as gifts in recent years. In the first three quilts, I utilized scraps of Three Cats Shweshwe, a Da Gama textile manufactured in South Africa, that were leftover from the quilts I made for my Stories from the South Atlantic Ocean collection.

Now that the 2024 Save Your Story Challenge is concluding (so disappointing, as I have learned so much from going through this process!), it is time to go back and review all of my posts from this year. These blog posts are so valuable to have to revisit what I have done and what I have learned, to ensure I continue to build moving forward. Thank you, Quilt Alliance, for providing this opportunity!