The Diary Quilt: A Key to Understanding...

I'm taking a break today from showing you pictures of my Diary Quilt, and instead am going to explain a little bit about it.

I gave a pretty thorough introduction post when I started, and this post won't duplicate that but will instead share a little bit of my thought processes along the way. How did I choose which blocks to include? How did I narrow down my life to these few images?

I hope this post will make the other Diary Quilt posts a bit more interesting to the non-quilters who read my blog, which I realize is the majority of you. Thanks, much, for bearing with me as I share this journey here on the blog.

The basic premise of the Diary Quilt is that the maker breaks his or her life into 5 or 10 year increments, then jots down the most vivid or significant memories for each segment.  Then it's time to flip through the book, or other quilt block sources, and decide which memories lend themselves well to being portrayed as a quilt block (or find a way to do so, if there's a bold enough memory that doesn't have an easy solution).

Mimi Dietrich has done a great job of compiling all sorts of blocks that work well for this, and the majority of my selections come from her book. Not all, but most. She also gives great tips for adding personal embellishments to the blocks, making each one your own, etc. so that the finished quilt truly tells your personal story.

So, that's what I did. And I wound up with various things -- a nice, neat 4-block row that I am calling "Heritage Row" -- the blocks I've shared so far that represent my grandparents and parents. Three blocks that together make up my elementary school and junior high school days. Four blocks that sum up my high school and college years. Those finish out my pre-married life.

Then there's a block for my wedding, and a block for each of my boys, and a block that symbolizes our family as a whole. A slew of blocks that encompass various aspects of motherhood and my life since then -- pets, and school books, and beach trips; frequent moves, and new friends, and a family of Americans living in Brazil.  Even a nod to my new hobby of quilting (and my lifelong pattern of creative hobbies).

And then blocks that look at the future -- continued travel, and dreams I hope will come true. Who knows, maybe one day I'll do a "Part Two" quilt, but for now I'm content to sew away, stitching together the stories that I'll one day tell my grandkids. A whole string of imperfect stitches, holding together the fabric pictures that sum up my life so far. There's a certain kind of deep-felt joy that comes from working on a project I know is going to matter to my loved ones.

I'm excited to work on this project, and thrilled to share it with each of you. I've worked quite a ways ahead of the blog, because I make it a point to share each block with the person(s) who inspired it before I share it here with the rest of you, and I have to say -- the block I'm working on today is I think my favorite so far. The memories and thoughts that flood my mind while I sew are just pure happiness to revisit, which is I think my favorite thing about this quilt in general.

I can't wait to share the rest of my Diary Quilt with you, and I hope you enjoy reading my stories. If you were going to tell your story, what medium or means would you choose?? 

86 Uncle: The Airplane Block

In preparing my Diary Quilt, I jotted down my most vivid memories from all ages of my life thus far.

The absolute clearest memory from my early childhood really isn't a single memory at all, but a patchwork itself of many trips over the years, all taken in one small airplane, piloted by my grandfather.

may need to be trimmed/added on to yet
done using this tutorial
the 86U is embroidered on, a 1st for me!

I'm told that my very first trip up was exactly, to the minute, one week after my birth. Many trips followed, sometimes just going up in the air and circling our city below, sometimes heading off to distant (or not so) locales.

Many of these trips were to a certain island near us, accessible only by plane or boat. I remember my Grandpa laughing as he pointed out that the "No Trespassing" signs were only on the beach side, thus clearly only applied to those coming in by boat and not those of us coming by plane.

I remember playing with an airplane wheel, a discard given to my sister and I. We stored it under a bush in the backyard, and pulled it out for all kinds of games.

I grew up, and that plane was always there. Grandpa always referred to it by a portion of the call letters: "8-6-Uncle" and so I came to know it that way as well.  I brought a group of friends home from college and what did we do? Went up for rides in 8-6-Uncle.

I got married, had kids of my own, and Grandpa took me up for flying lessons. I think he was disappointed I didn't quite have the same knack for flying that my dad & his siblings all had. Too many instruments, and too many numbers to watch all at the same time. But what fun it was, trying to learn, my Grandpa patiently showing me what to do, passing down his passion, pouring himself into his oldest granddaughter.  I didn't learn, but I'll never forget that single day he spent trying to teach me.

Eventually the plane was sold, but I will never forget 8-6-Uncle, flying through the decades, carrying me from one happy memory of my grandfather to the next.

What happy memory do you have of your grandfather?