The Soldier's Wife---

In 2013, our Thread Tales book club read "The Soldier's Wife" by Margaret Leroy. The story is about a woman during the time the Germans occupied residences in her village during World War II. A German soldier moves into her home. What she decides to do to keep her two daughters and her mother-in-law safe during a time that food is scarce and the brutality of war shows itself. 

In the story, she removes the flowers from her garden to make room to grow food. She cuts down her fruiting trees so she has fuel to burn to heat her home. She wrestles with cutting the trees because she is losing a food source; but, she is freezing. She makes many hard decisions. She agonizes as she removes the flowers from her garden; but in the end she keeps one rose to remind her what her garden used to resemble. 

This rose was what inspired me to make a project. At the time, I had purchased a new sewing machine and I was taking a class to learn about the embroidery features of my machine. This rose was one of the designs I learned how to stitch with my embroidery module.  The cut work motif represents the love she experienced and kept hidden. The candlewick stitching represents the path she took to keep her family warm, fed and safe. 

Also, at the time Ami Simms had developed Alzheimer's quilt initiative as a way to raise money for researching an end to the disease. Ami's mom had Alzheimer's. Ami launched a non profit that accepted small quilts from makers and then sold those quilts to raise research monies. 

The mini quilt

Some quilts were priced and I think some were bid upon. For a number of years, you could purchase the quilt outright at the International Quilt Show in Houston. For shipping, the quilts had to be able to fit into a small United States Postal Service priority envelope. I made three quilts for the project to honor of my grandmother who had Alzheimer's. 

Ami closed her non-profit a few years after her mom died. 

I have only one photo of the project. I don't remember what I called it either! Writing this post was goal number one on my August goal list.