One of the most popular quilt blocks in the quilting kingdom was named after James K. Polk’s run for President. The enigmatic “54/40 or Fight” block is a constant puzzle for quilters. No one seems to know what the name stands for, and is referred to as “44/50″, “14/40 and Flight” and other such misnomers.
Just to set the record straight for my students, I did an info search on the web to find the ever-elusive explanation.

As campaign platforms go, Polk’s was rather ambitious and could have produced dire consequences for the United States, as he basically threatened war with Canada.

The 1844 Democratic presidential candidate James K. Polk ran on a platform of taking control over the entire Oregon Territory and used the famous campaign slogan, “Fifty-four Forty or Fight!” (after the line of latitude serving as the northern boundary of Oregon at 54

This past week, I spent time with five young people in a quilt camp at the store where I teach.
Four girls, ages 11-13, and one boy, my son, age 12. Yes, my son does sew and quilt, poor thing! I force him to attend a class with me each summer, doing fun projects. He initially complains but really gets into it as the week goes on. This is the summer that he became aware of girls, so he didn’t protest as much as years passed. Even though, he sat at a table by himself and wore headphones, keeping himself pretty removed from them. The only girl who is at the age to be interested in boys didn’t pay any attention to my son, as she is totally in love with “American Idol” contestant, John Peter Lewis.
Our project for the week was copying photos to fabric and making scrapbook quilts. The girls had a competition between them to see who could make the most quilts during the week we had together. JPL’s biggest fan won having made five quilts, of JPL. On Friday morning, everyone complained about how fast the time went and how they wished they had another week. That’s a pretty big compliment. They were a great group of students and I thoroughly enjoyed working with them.
But it isn’t the amount of quilts that were made that impressed me about these students. It was how they worked, how motivated they were and how focused they were on their projects. They were phenomenal in picking fabrics for their quilts, just the right pieces to tell the stories that illustrated their pictures.
For example; one girl, Krysti, owns horses and loves to ride. She took a class from me earlier in the summer, and during that week, her horse died. It was devastating for her. Last week, she brought in pictures of her horse and made a quilt using fabrics that are synonymous with horses. Red blanket plaid, brick wall fabric with vines growing on the brick, red hearts, and farm animals. It was perfect!
Lindsay, the “fan”, chose yellow stars, red hearts, and a border print that had flashing lights and bright stars. It was perfect!
Sarah had a picture of her favorite aunt and her new husband taken at Christmas. She chose red plaid, a white snowflake tone-on-tone print, and a christmas red-and-green checked fabric — then sewed on star and reindeer buttons.
Shawna made a very special quilt for her father. She had a picture of herself when she was about two years old that was just priceless. She picked three perfect fabrics to surround her picture, then sewed ribbon roses in each corner. Using rubber stamped papers as embellishments, she chose a dragonfly, a daisy, a swirly heart, and the words “sweet girl” to stitch onto her quilt in just the right spots to complete an original piece of art.
Robin, a certified baseball nut, copied his favorite baseball cards of players from the SF Giants and the Oakland A’s to make a Battle of the Bay wallhanging for his room.

I really wish I had thought about bringing my camera to class on Friday so I could take pictures of their quilts — I don’t know why I didn’t! I could have posted them here. Each of these quilts will be on display at “A Bountiful Harvest” quilt show in November, as a part of a special exhibit of quilts made by young people. You will be amazed by the talent of these young quilt artists.

Young people have no boundaries, no notions of what is “supposed to be right”, or the proscribed way to make quilts. They just create from the heart and don’t worry about their seam allowances or the opinion of others. I have to think about creating quilts that way more often. It certainly is a lot more fun and doesn’t take nearly as long.
Some times I agonize over quilts for days, and search for fabrics for weeks. I worry about all of the quilts I want to make and how little time I have left on the earth, after all, “the” milestone birthday is just around the corner. Oh well, I guess I will get some done, and I won’t get some done. As many as time permits!

happy quilting!
Annie

My husband is technologically driven; not unlike me, who is driven by quilting.
He, like me, is always interested in what is new, what is upcoming, and what is on the horizon.
He came home from work last week and informed me that there was a really cool thing that he HAD to show me, “perfect for your website”. What he showed me was this: an online journal, better known in cyberspace as a BLOG, or weblog (hence ‘blog). Blogs are all the rage with computer geeks, and I must admit, very attractive to me. I love to write and I used to be a devoted journal writer until I got married and life’s pace suddenly started zooming by. Now I’m lucky if I remember to write in my personal journal once a month.
The thought of writing a weekly “column” about quilting is really appealing to me. The true journal writing I do is done in my quilts. Every quilt tells a story of what is going on in our lives at the time we are making it.

For instance, I have this one quilt that I started when my two oldest kids began playing t-ball, back in 1988. It was a simple 6″ appliqued heart made from Laura Ashley fabrics that you could buy as a kit. My kids were on the same team, so small, as t-ballers are, and so inexperienced. Everyone has their spot on the field, but they all go where the ball goes and forget their post.
One vivid memory is Kirsten, on second base, picking her nose instead of watching what was going on and of course, the ball coming right at her and she is oblivious. Ryan is synchronously sitting, picking grass in center field. I still wish I had a video camera to have caught that on tape (good blackmail!). But no video tape could bring that image as clear to my mind as it does when I look at that quilt.

Fast forward to 2002 and I am emptying a box which is still unpacked from our move, one year earlier. There is the Laura Ashley packet with 6 finished heart blocks and a whole lot more to be done, all ready for stitching! In fact, I wonder if the permanent glue stick I used in 1988 has indeed become permanent. To my amazement, all of the prepared pieces are just as if I did them recently.
Best of all, little league season is just starting. My youngest son, however, is wearing a brand new cast on his arm which he got the day of tryouts.
He looked fantastic at tryouts and the coaches are murmuring about drafting him to Majors at the age of 10. We left the field happy and proud, discussing the pros and cons of having Robin be “a little fish in a big pond”. Guy and I planned on having dinner in Santa Cruz that evening and were just getting ready to go out to the car, when there was a frantic knock on the door and someone trying to turn the doorknob. As I opened the door, the neighbor boy, Sam, fell in saying “Robin broke his arm!” Sam has a trampoline in his backyard and I’m thankful that it’s not a head or spine injury. At that moment, everything started moving in slow motion.
Robin was standing in the driveway, holding his right arm which is bending in the wrong direction, with a look of panic and disbelief on his face. Into the car we go and, four hours later, I am sitting in a waiting room, reading the latest issue of “Quilter’s Newsletter” while my son has his arm surgically put back together.
Robin was drafted to a Minors team by a very faithful coach who realized Robin would be able to play halfway into the season. We went to every practice and every game even though Robin sat on the bench in uniform with his cast, and I sat in the bleachers methodically stitching each heart into place. Twenty-four blocks and the Moreland Minor Indians taking a First place finish (17 – 1) later, I put the quilt top together and handed it off to my favorite machine quilter. She is a whiz at quilting words, so I had her quilt my children’s names in each of the corners with our last name in the fourth corner. I named the quilt “It Happens Every Spring”, named after an old baseball movie, one of our family’s favorites. Here is this very dainty pastel quilt with hearts and it all has to do with baseball!

I read quite a while ago in “Quilter’s Newsletter” an excerpt from a Civil War woman’s diary. It was just a couple of paragraphs, but in it, she talked about this patch being from her husband’s work shirt and this patch from her son’s pants, taking time to stitch in the evening by a coal oil lamp. She mentioned the pictures on the hearth of her family; how she remembered events and emotions, those who were now dead and looking at the quilts that she had made, knew the story of her life and her family’s in each patch and each stitch. What impact that had on me, as I realized that I could do the very same thing with my own quilts.
I thought that I had kept that little article, but I can’t find it anywhere. Probably thrown out accidently when packing to move, just like the window brackets that were too expensive to begin with but that I just had-to-have and now can’t bring myself to replace. Why, I could use that money to buy more fabric!

Thanks for hanging in there with me. Hopefully you can see that I enjoy writing almost as much as I do quilting. Please feel free to add comments to my blogs – there is a button you can choose to do so. Also, you can add your own thoughts about quilting, or tips and techniques that will be helpful to other viewers. This is only the beginning of what I hope will be a fun place to visit on the web.

Happy quilting!
Annie

p.s. here is a picture of the quilt!