Green Hearts for the Healing Hearts for Christchurch Project
A quick post to mark a quick flimsy finish. My Green Hearts 4 Christchurch quilt top is finished. I like it – it was a great way to use up some fabric scraps. Admittedly it’s no show quilt – it was made in a mild hurry by two people of very different sewing styles on two very different machines. But it is filled with caring, and it is very calming in colour and form. It has already performed some significant soothing during its construction – hopefully it will continue to weave its magic as it is passed on to be quilted and bound and, finally, gifted.
If you’d like to make an appliqué heart project, for Christchurch victims/responders or any other special cause or person in your life, the heart template I drew and used is freely available for download in this post.
Sometimes life sits heavy
I am hesitant to lay any claim to being affected by the tragedy of the recent Christchurch shootings. It feels extravagant and self-centred to say so in any capacity. Because on one level, it didn’t affect me….. I don’t know anyone who was directly impacted and I did not lose anything of substance in that event. The sewing of green hearts aside, I get up every morning and go through my day as if it never happened.
And yet I do care and it did affect me… it has weighed heavily on me. It was wrong. It should never have happened and should never happen again. And it came as my life already felt really complicated.
At the time I was grappling with decisions about my daughter’s schooling and my own working future. It came as I worried about our son’s impending minor surgery, and felt overwhelmed by an aging parent who will not make reasoned decisions regarding their own safety and wellbeing, and that of others. It added to my emotional burden of the Ethiopian plane crash, that killed people who were well known by people we know through my husband’s humanitarian work circle of influence. People who were making more than average efforts to help others, doing what my husband does. It could have easily been him on that plane on a different day, and two degrees of separation is too scary-close. Somehow the Christchurch shootings completed a sense of chaos that was already pervading my life.
Creating is my coping response
We all go through times like this. It is the nature of life, for things not to pan out the way we want, or had planned. Things happen by chance and things happen by human error and even by human evilness. And when they happen in clusters, they are extra tough to process. For me, part of coping is creating. Especially “creating outwards”….. making something with the express intent of adding goodness into the life of another, not just creating for my own pleasure. So when I discovered the Healing Hearts 4 Christchurch initiative, I felt compelled to participate. I knew it would help me process some of the other things going on in my life as well as my feelings about Christchurch. You can read about the start of that process and how to get involved here.
Creating something soothing and uplifting
Green is a good colour for frazzled nerves. When I was a child, it was my favourite colour. I eventually moved on to preferring blue in my teens, but these days I am most attracted to blue-greens, so I seem to have settled in the middle of past favourites.
Fabric scraps are also good for stressed minds. Most of my scraps are either from projects I hold fondly in memory or from friends whom I love dearly. Therefore, working with my scraps usually brings me a sense of comfort independent of, and in addition to, the actual making. Furthermore, some of the scraps in this project belonged to my friend Susan, who helped me with this quilt construction. Those scraps were from a project that she abandoned because the intended recipient didn’t want it. So this projects helped lift the weight of waste and rejection that was embodied in those scraps for her as well.
In addition, it was easy to feel a little flicker of joy as each heart shape emerged from the scrap fabric Susan and I had constructed.
This heart is my favourite. The treble clef is a scrap from a quilt gifted to a dear friend. The blue-green dots are a scrap from a doona cover I made my hubby. There are other scraps from Susan and a mutual friend in this heart too. The hearts were cut out of our pieced fabric at random and this one is somehow perfect.
Unexpected thoughts
Of course, as I relaxed into this project and started enjoying it, I got to thinking about making another one in the future…. as you do. And thinking about a future quilt is a form of hope. And hope is one of the best healers I know.
If I was making this project for myself, I would change things, of course. I would likely settle for a more modern look with more white space. Just one heart would make a great quilt with plenty of negative space to work on my FMQ skills.
Or perhaps some other random placement of hearts that does not fill the entire grid. I’d love to have more time to play with ideas. That was never the intention… this was to be a one off quick project with no lasting legacy in my quilting life! But it wouldn’t be the first time a new project has inserted itself into my quilting schedule. 😀
If you’d like to make a heart quilt of your own, you can download a pdf of the heart shape I used here:
It fits a 6″ finished block, which is also conveniently the size of a nine-patch made of 2.5″ squares. The quilt top Susan and I made measures 36″ x 42″.
If you use the template, I’d love to see your project. 🙂
The Chameleon turns rainbow with pleasure when he hears from you. I am more reserved, so I will respond in gratitude by email instead. Now that it’s your turn…. Scroll right to the end, leave me a comment and tell me, what do you think? Thanks for connecting!
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This is a good cause. Keep up the good work.
Beautiful quilt, I’m sure it will be loved. Lovely post, full of hope!
My church makes quilts for the homeless, children’s orphanage and nursing homes. We meet once a month to make them. It gives you a good feeling in your heart to do this.
Beautifully written post with heartfelt thoughts. It is a lovely quilt top, and will comfort someone who really needs it. I often find that charity quilting does just as much for me as it does for someone in need.
As my sight blurs, and tears fall on the keyboard, my only words today, are hope and hugs. your quilt will help provide hope and comfort.
Thanks so much for sharing. So many times life seems so overwhelming and then we truly look at those around us. When I was a young girl just getting started in life, the president of the company I was working for gave me some words of wisdom… “I felt badly because I had no shoes until I saw a man with no feet.” These words have always been those that I live by as I reach out to those around me. The quilt is beautiful and I am sure the hearts in it will touch someones heart as they know it was made with love.
Beautiful post Dione. It sums up a lot of why we do what we do. I’m on retreat this coming weekend and I hope that I will have a top to bring home with me. Gorgeous quilt – it will be well received.
There are memories in your hearts and blocks, and if you include a note with the quilt, the person who receives this will treasure it so much. I personally was not affected, but for us living a long way from Christchurch, it still meant our safe secure country has been shattered. Green,fabrics, designing and sewing all help to ease any troubles. Hope your own ones with surgery, schooling and older parent problems are resolved as best they can be. XXX
Beautiful finish.
You’ve put into words so eloquently and with such feeling some of my own thoughts over these past few weeks of tragedy. It is the one-year anniversary too, of the Humboldt bus crash that killed so many young 16-year-old hockey players, their coach, and the team therapist, the lone woman, same name as my daughter, Dayna. The quilts were all there, quilts that I sewed blocks for, and it just breaks me down in tears…. I’m going to go and sew some blocks for NZ, because it does help healing, and hope is all that we have to help us deal with such tragedies. Thank you for writing this post Dione.
Thanks for sharing your heart with us… it has been wonderful to see the amazing support across the world for Christchurch . Sending prayers and hugs your way for all the challenges you are facing in your own life xx
Creating in times of stress is so important. The degrees of separation often feel like there are is no separation. I am glad it helped you work through some of this, and know it will provide solace to those whose lives were unfairly altered forever. I will root for you and yours as you travers the terrain of surgery, school, parents, husband/coworkers/colleagues…. Virtual hugs and real prayers for you, yours and those affected in so many ways.
Thanks for your post Dione, you have expressed your thoughts so well, and your heart quilt looks great. Creating has been my “go to” when life deals you hard times.