Sam's Darlin' Hearts, more than just a quilt......

 

I was contacted by a friend of Mary Lou, she asked if I could quilt this special quilt which was made in memory of Mary Lou's son Sam who sadly passed away. I have spent some time getting to know Sam and Mary Lou through Mary Lou's blog entries about Sam and my heart aches for her loss. I felt honored that they thought of me to quilt this, because it is more than just a quilt.  It's a treasured memory of many quilters goodness during a time of need for another quilter.  It's amazing the power of love that can spread through the blog world and I am happy to be apart of this great quilting community.

Photo courtesy of Mary Lou

So, this is Sam and here is the story of the quilt by Mary Lou in her own words:

Sam's Darlin' Hearts :-) is a testimony of the kindness and generosity of quilters!! In May last year, my 17 year old son, Sam, inexplicably and unexpectedly passed away.  He was an amazing kid...generous of heart, a total optimist, and a friend to all who met him.  An avid runner, he made the point of meeting the men and women who beat him in 5K's and such, so he could learn from them and become as excellent as he thought they were.  A home school kid, his closest friends were a couple of kids his own age, a couple of pastors and their wives, and one of my quilting buddies (who also taught him chemistry!) and her husband. His best friend, Luke, said of him that "Sam loved without filters." As the ambulance carried him away and Jeff and I prepared to follow, both fairly certain he was gone, I sank into Jeff's arms and said, "He's the son of my heart!" Later as people remembered him, they commented on his servant heart. We learned from his autopsy that his heart was enlarged -- typical for runners -- and our family doctor (a close friend to Sam), said that was no surprise!!  "We always knew Sam's heart was bigger than most!!" And out of the blue, after I wrote about Sam's passing on my blog, beautiful heart blocks started arriving in my mail box!! Some of them were from blog friends that I've become close to.  Many others were from quilters who didn't know me.  Most were from the "Hands to Help"challenge that Sarah Craig did with you for quilts to Romania.  I can't even tell you how comforting they were!! I commented that the blocks make me cry -- like Charlene Darlin on the Andy Griffith Show --lol-- and Sam's Darlin' Hearts became the name of the quilt.

 

So, the quilting had to be special, I hope I achieved that. I spent 25 hours quilting this quilt, I have two layers of batting in it as well and used 12 bobbins of thread.  I marked all the straight lines then used my straight edge ruler to quilt the lines, then free motioned quilted everything else.

 

I had fun with the borders. I love detail, but you know that already.... 

 

Love this block, it was so fun to quilt.

 

This block was fun too, love that I quilted hearts into the echo quilting - seemed fitting.. :-) 

 

The large triangles on the side of the quilt made for a fun new dimension in the quilting - I thought about continuing the straight line quilting like in the borders, but I am happy I did this instead. 

 

It really was so fun to quilt up all these different blocks, it is so hard to pick which ones to share up close.

 

I love that the blue and yellow triangles make a block around the heart blocks.  The quilting makes a frame around them that I just love...

 

A lot of ruler work went into this quilt.  I quilt at a speed of about 4 1/2, so it's a little on the slower side so that I can be sure that everything comes out even. 

 

Oh my goodness! The back, I love it! It turned out so pretty! 

 

Love the triangles in the borders.

 

It was a treat for me to work on this quilt, thanks for letting me share the whole story of this quilt with you.