Remembering Kerry

October is a sad month for me; both my parents and my older sister all passed away, in different years, in this month.  October 29 is the first anniversary of when we lost my sister Kerry.

At the recent Studio Tour I displayed GW Quilt and I am going to share that with you now.

This quilt was made by Kerry and I to give to our parents on their Golden Wedding Anniversary on May 3, 1997.

The quilt was made as a joint venture and begun at a time when I lived in New Jersey and Kerry was in Cambridge, New Zealand.  I purchased the multi colored print you see in the second to last border and together we chose fabrics to go with it. The decision was made to create a medallion style quilt with a Carpenters Wheel block at the center - in part a homage to our maternal grandfather who was a carpenter. We also decided on the outer pieced border which turned out to be one of the first pieces made for the quilt because we wanted to be sure we had enough fabric for it. Of course this also meant that we could not make too many changes to the design because the border, cut and pieced by me, had to fit the quilt.

As I recall, I made the center block and then mailed it to Kerry who made the blocks for the next round and sent it back to me to make the next round. About that time I discovered my family and I were relocating to live in Australia so that made it a little easier to be in contact about the quilt.

For the round with the big 12" blocks we each made eight blocks. Next, Kerry stitched up the flying geese and then added the other borders. Finally, our friend Donna Ward quilted GW Quilt, a name bestowed upon it as we were creating it. That name was not intended to be the real name but somehow over the months the quilt grew with that identity and once it was finished we did not have the inclination to bestow a new name on our quilt of love.

The finished quilt measures about 90" square.  Each of three daughters, 3 sons-in-law and six grandchildren created their own label with a personal message which were stitched onto  the reverse side along with four more blocks.

Our parents slept under it, covered by our love, for only a few short months until we lost Mum in October 1997. And now it has come to live with me.

We three sisters  (l to r, Cathy, Dorry, Kerry) had a great time at the Queenstown National Quilt Symposium in April 2011. Although Cathy is not a quilter Kerry and I were delighted that she was able to come with us to Queenstown.

Kerry and I had shared a love of quilting, mostly from one side of the world to the other, from the time I introduced her to a new hobby I had found in early 1981. Although GW Quilt was the only quilt we made as a pair we did sew together in a round robin group beginning in January 1999 until 2013. Some of those quilts I have shown on earlier posts on this blog.

I miss my beloved big sister so very much. On this day Cathy and I are each remembering her in our own way from one side of the globe to the other.

In Memoriam

Kerry Lynne Payne (nee Coughlan)

March 3 1951 - October 29 2013