Memory Quilts from Aunt Pam and Grandpa Bodell

By Pam, Rachel, Grandpa Bodell and many others

(Note: Some of the pictures are a bit dark unless you have you light key turned up on your computer.)

It was actually Rachel’s idea even before the idea of doing a service in David’s name this year.  In the past I had made some T-shirt quilts for loved ones including my sons-in law and my parents.  As I measured, cut, ironed and sewed, it would bring memories of their accomplishments and activities. I made another one as I watched my mother grow older, smaller and more distant with Alzheimer’s as I visited her for eighteen months in a care center she shared with my Father-the two twin size beds pushed up against one another to make a large king size bed.  Now Mom is gone and as winter approaches we will once again get down the warm fuzzy quilt off the top shelf to warm Dad through the winter months ahead.  And once again I hope that he can take comfort as he looks at the blocks of his life sewn together.  

Within a few days of David’s passing Laura and Cristina lovingly and painfully gathered David’s clothing from his closet and drawers folding them quickly away in four or five giant bins. It was too hard to look at them.  They put them on the top shelves in the basement of the new home that David had built for Cris, Josh, and Jazzy, locking away a part of her life with David safely where those things that were important and useful to him were still close by.  It was like a part of him still being there to touch and remember. 

Months passed. Rachel and I thought it would be a nice Christmas gift for David’s two children as that would mark just one year of David’s passing. The service blog was put in place and we wanted to be able to make these for our service.   We approached Laura and Cris and asked them if it would be possible to do before Christmas.  We planned a date in the middle of September to meet at the house and help go through David’s things together.  We (Courtney, Rachel, Pam, Cris, and Laura) gathered and began taking the lids off each of the boxes and slowly and methodically went through each of them.  The hours were filled with love, memories, tears, laughter, and all along I felt David was there close to us.  These were things that he cherished and had saved throughout his life.  

 Along with the clothing were placed other treasures and memories of a lifetime of growing up.  Pictures, stacks of paper of drawings, notes, report cards, birth documentation, immigration and travel paperwork to bring his loving wife and her family to this country, three or four of his favorite Hacki Sacks, scouting awards and uniform, two rings one reading CTR and the other Return with Honor.  I had to turn away and cry.  Cris had been so strong and I was the one breaking down.  After returning we again pulled items from the boxes.  

  

Each item of clothing we would ask Cris if she was ready to part with.  A few times she would take the item and carefully caress it and smell it, taking in all the scents of David that still lingered.  We pulled out a shirt he would wear when he drove the train, and she took the long sleeves and tied them around her face like a bandit so the smell was right there for a bit longer.  There was a pair of pants where we found some gum.  We passed it around and each took a piece and chewed the almost year old gum, just because it was his. We teased a bit as we continued to search pockets.  Maybe David had left money in one of them.   

I pulled out David's sports jacket he would wear to church  and stuck my hand in to check each pocket.  In one pocket my hand rested upon a familiar shape.  I pulled out six or seven Crayola crayons.  This was the jacket of a loving father who tended and entertained his two children each Sunday as he took them to church.   I could picture week after week with Josh or Jazzy upon his lap as he would draw and color with them.  Once again I cried. 

 We continued to sort clothing into various bins to go to the DI, give to family, or give to the memory quilts, keeping just a few favorites back in a box for Cris to once again put up on the shelf in the basement.  Maybe one day she will want a memory quilt from those that brought so many memories to her. 

We loaded up the various cars with the large bins.  I took home two bins.  Then my work began. 

I quickly sent out an email to the local girl cousins that I needed help with our project.  We scheduled a Craftapolooza on the first Saturday of October while the men were at General Priesthood meeting.  It made it easier to make it a party where we could laugh together as we worked.    That gave me a couple of weeks to get everything in order to have many helping hands bring these quilts to completion. 

Step 1:  Wash everything and decide what we could use.

Step 2:  David didn’t have very many T-shirts.  That required us rethinking our project and researching for ideas. Rachel found an example from a place that would make them for us for a high price, but that would take the love out of it and the opportunity I had to say goodbye to David in my own way as I began my weeks of working on the quilts. This was going to be a harder task than my past quilts because it took more designing and measuring to make it look like the ones online.  It wouldn’t be made with large Tshirt blocks but from those clothes that he wore each day.  Work shirts, church pants, his orange shirt he wore on his first date with Cris, a swim suit that hopefully Josh would remember David wearing, a Hawaiian shirt maybe given him by Ben, his temple pants, along with a few T-shirts from his mission and a side of a bag Nicki had made for them for Christmas the year before with a digital picture of David swinging around his two children on the beach.  Each quilt would need small precise cutting of each piece to make a block that would then take all the blocks together to be sewn to make a complete pattern.

Step 3:  Carefully look at each piece of clothing looking for tears, holes, or stains of a working father.  It could only be the best that we would sew into the quilts. 

Step 4:  Cut away all seams, pockets, collars, gathers, pleats, zippers, and hems leaving just flat pieces of fabric that were then folded away until the cousins got together to help. 

Step 5:  I made poster board patterns so that more of us could be cutting at once.  I planned and made a few blocks as an example so I could explain what I needed once we all got together.  The patterns needed to allow for seam allowance and the various sizes hoping that we could keep all sewing of each seam even. 

Step 6:  We met at Jimae’s and let the party begin.  David always loved a party and I was sure he would be there with us if he could be.  I wanted to feel him there.  Cris was a bit nervous when she walked in and had been trying to prepare herself to see David’s clothing “cut up”.  She came in and took a few pictures of us then went to visit the grave to put flowers on it.  Kriss and Dixie had both come to town and arranged their schedule to help us.  Nicki, Laura, Rachel, Courtney and Brandy all came too.  Jimae set up the sewing machine and was ready to start sewing as soon as we had something to sew.

Step 7:  I had sorted clothing in to two piles trying to put together colors and patterns that would complement each other.  

We did Jazzy’s first with pastels from shirts and lighter colors. We left on buttons, pockets, embroidery and pleats that hinted at what the clothing was before it became a quilt.   I pulled out the stacks of fabric and everyone got to design their own blocks. 

  I needed everyone to make three blocks for each quilt.  

 Then we did the same with Josh’s using darker colors and David’s missionary t-shirts. 

 Step 8:  As each block was prepared and pinned to keep right pieces together it was handed off to Jimae who put her foot to the pedal and managed to keep up with us as fast of the other 8 of us could prepare them.  

Step 9:  Next I had to make sure we had enough blocks and tried laying them out on the living room floor to get a final count to make sure we were done and to give the others a glimpse of what the quilt would look like.  

After hours of working our little helpers wanted some attention and thought it would be fun to run through and roll around in the puzzle pieces I had just laid out so carefully.  It made us all laugh, and I knew it was just something I would need to finish at home.

 We packed up the boxes and everyone said good night.  

 Thank you so much to each of you for helping put the pieces of these quilts together for the sweet children of David.  They will be able to enjoy these throughout their lives and I hope feel their Father closer to them as they wrap themselves up in these Memory quilts. 

Step 10:  Next I took everything home, ironed open each seam, putting the puzzles together again to see how they would best look.  I first got Jazzy’s all sewn together.  It turned out beautiful.  

 I tried to put Josh’s together and realized I was missing one block so pulled out all the fabric again along with the cutting board and roller.  I was sprinting to the finish and excited about seeing the project near an end.  I was too rushed.  As I went to make the very last cut with my rolling blade my right hand slipped up over the large ruler, slicing a good deep 1 1/2 inch wound across my left index finger. I grabbed my finger more worried about if I had bled on the block than what I had done to my finger. After visits to two doctors and some stitches, I was ready to sew again.  It was awkward sewing without my guide finger but I really felt like I was being blessed to finish this step.  

 Step 11: Something was missing.  I forgot that I would need room for the binding around the quilt to not ruin the pattern we had created so I had to bring out the boxes once again to find coordinating fabrics to add 6 inches around the whole quilt tops. 

Done, or should I say almost done.

Step 12:  I called the quilter and made an appointment to drop off the tops and bottoms. We knew it would look nicer and last longer if we had them professional quilted rather than machine stitching it on my 34 year old Singer sewing machine that I got as a wedding present from Mom and Dad for Christmas. For Grandpa Bodell’s service to David he paid for all the quilting materials and to have the quilts professionally quilted.  Thank you to Grandpa for his generosity. 

Step 13:  The final step.  Binding the quilt.  Again a bit figuratively as the word “Binding” has so much meaning to us as an eternal family.  It has been a time of thinking back and thinking forward as I have touched each piece of fabric that is now sewn together in to two beautiful quilts that will be a bit of David that Josh and Jazzy can see, touch, hold and wrap themselves in to feel him a bit closer, knowing that they are bound to David for eternity.  Just as this quilt is bound together, we as a family are all bound together to make one large beautiful life on earth as we share our lives together and learn to live each day hopefully as full as David did.