The Quilt Story – “On the Road in America”
It all started with a quote from a book by Stephen Ambrose about the building of the Railroad. He said that when the transcontinental railroad was completed in the mid-19th century, this was the first time man had been able to travel faster then horse and buggy since the time of Caesar. Today we cross the United States in a matter of hours and we have even been to the moon.
Our guild members are great travelers and certainly not traveling by horse and buggy any longer. With that in mind, I thought that “On the Road Again” would be a great theme for the 2017 show. Well, with that theme in mind, the obvious quilt pattern was a “Trip Around the World”.
We live in a wonderful country and enjoy great freedom that allows all Americans to travel un-restricted around this beautiful land. This freedom comes with a price and many have paid the ultimate sacrifice to ensure that we can travel and enjoy the many wonders this country has to offer. I hope that during our travels, we will see things that inspire our creativity and that will transform itself into wonderful quilts to share with our community, friends and family.
Just after I volunteered to be the Quilt Show Chair for 2017 and 2018, I had a dream one night about the quilt and what it should look like. The quilt is a reflection of that dream and the love I have for this great land we live in and the freedoms we enjoy as Americans.
The center blue field holds 13 stars that represent the original 13 colonies. When I was appliqueing them on, I thought of Betsy Ross doing the same on her first flag. The stars come from a flag that has flown for three years in the “Ride for The Fallen” motorcycle ride in Utah. A family in Logan Utah lost a son in the Iraq war and he was a motorcycle rider. Dad did not know how to ride and so he learned how to ride and organized the ride and rode his son’s motorcycle. During the years that I participated, there were over 200 bikers each year from all over the US and some from Europe that traveled to Utah and then made the 150 mile ride though the Utah mountains in honor of this fallen soldier and his family. My truck and the flag was the trail vehicles for the ride. The procession started out with several motorcycles carrying full size flags and so it was appropriate that the end of the procession have a flag. The start of the ride took us though Logan, Utah, and all the streets that we traveled on were lined with people and our Nation’s Flags.
The red and white field next to the center stars has 13 red and white strips representing the red and white strips of our flag. The outer blue field and border contain 50 white stars, one each for the 50 states that make up this great Nation we call America.
I’ve spent 45 years wearing the uniform of this nation and so the flag and this quilt have special meaning for me. Please enjoy this quilt and the rich blessings that come from living in the United States of America, and remember those that have sacrificed so much for the freedoms we all enjoy.
The quilt was made by the “Coop Group”; DeRay and Shirley Jensen, Dee Jagerhorn, Cooky Amarel, Linda Matsumoto, Margaret Rehermann, Claire Poole, Mary Overton, Chris Shore-Hague and Valeria Wilson, and was machine quilted by Karen Litvinchuk.
DeRay Jensen
Quilt Show Chair – 2017