Throw Quilt Entry for the Blogger’s Quilt Festival

Each spring and fall, Amy from Amy’s Creative Side hosts her bi-annual Blogger’s Quilt Festival to coincide with the spring and fall Quilt Markets.   This first week, May 17th to 24th, bloggers can link up and share their favourite quilts in a variety of categories.  Then from May 24th to 30th the voting for a favourite in each category takes place with the winner being announced on May 31st.

This year, each blogger is allowed to enter two quilts.   For my entry in the throw quilt cateogory,  I’ve chosen the quilt I named “Aloha Ohana.”

Regular readers of Super Mom – No Cape! will have already seen this quilt a couple of times.  First, as a Jelly Roll 1600 quilt top I made last spring while Dave was working on a contract in Grand Bend, ON.   At the time, I had planned to make a quilt for each of our children for Christmas and that one was made with our middle daughter in mind.  Then fate intervened and that six month contract was cancelled after only two months.  The top was packed away in the bottom of my suitcase; traveling with us from place to place over the next several months.

Then in February, our middle daughter was diagnosed with a serious illness.  We are oh so grateful that she is now on the road to complete recovery but when she called with the news, Dave and I experienced first hand the feeling of total helplessness that can sweep over a parent.

To feel like I was doing something, anything… no matter how little, I decided to get out that quilt top and turn it into a finished quilt to send to her.

I made this label to attach to the back of the quilt:

I wanted her to know that her Dad had helped me make the quilt too.  He helped to get the quilt top, batting and backing ready to quilt.  He made all the meals during that time.

When my shoulders and neck ached in protest from doing the hand basting and then maneuvering the quilt while doing the machine quilting and then again while hand sewing the binding to the back, Dave provided much needed massages so that I could push through and get it finished to send to her.

Before doing the machine quilting, I hand embroidered the words Aloha, Ohana, Love and Hope through all three layers of the quilt.

From 2000 to 2004, we lived on Maui and it became home of our hearts.  It is our fondest dream to return to live there again one day.  For the backing of the quilt I chose this beautiful Hawaiian style fabric featuring hibiscus and plumeria blooms to remind her of home.

I also used that fabric to make a matching tote for the quilt.

And here is the finished quilt:

My original post about the Ohana Aloha quilt can be found here.

I decided to name the quilt “Ohana Aloha” because Ohana is the Hawaiian word for family and while Aloha is most often recognized as the Hawaiian word of greeting, it has much deeper meanings and when a person chooses to live their life in the Spirit of Aloha it becomes a word of blessing.

I would be so pleased if you chose to share by clicking on one of the buttons below!