News : The story behind the Alzheimer's Quilt; raffle set for May 19 at BC Speedway

There will be a special event to raise funds for the Alzheimer's Association during the races at the Benton County Speedway on Sunday, May 19.

The main promotion is the raffle of the Alzheimer's Association quilt, which includes 14,000 squares. Each of the three-quarter-inch squares represents one caregiver for Alzheimer’s patients in the state of Iowa.

First some background about me. I learned to sew when I joined 4H as a 10-

year-old growing up in Medina County, Ohio. I made a lot of my own clothes including my wedding dress and sewed for my husband and our family of five. I've made Halloween costumes, sport jackets for the boys and many other garments. I initially learned to sew by sewing rags for rugs on a treadle sewing machine, and later it was powered by a motor that had a pulley that fit under the fly-wheel of the machine.

My father's mother was a quilter, and pieced many quilts by hand and with a treadle sewing machine. I always wanted to learn to quilt, and in the late '80s a friend gave me a subscription to a quilting magazine. I read a lot of quilting magazines over the years. By the September of 1999, I had quit my job of 20 years in a convenience store to care for my husband who had Alzheimer's disease. I joined the Eastern Iowa Heirloom Quilters. I took a couple of workshops, where I learned by watching and asking advice of other quilters, who were very willing to share and help. I am also a member of a small quilting group at another church where I learned more of the basics of quilting.

After my husband died, the guild had a Meet & Greet meeting to get acquainted with new members and we were to tell something unusual about ourselves. I said, "I collect scraps," and as a result I've received many nice quality quilting fabric scraps for my quilting on my limited budget. I jokingly say, "I quilt with OPS" (other people's scraps). Among the scraps I received were some from a lady who made a lot of miniature quilts and had a lot of little scraps, and this is how I learned to sew 1" and 1-1/4" squares on the sewing machine. This is something I never realized I could do.

In June of 2010, the chairladies of the 2011 quilt show announced that the theme for the show would be "Beyond Your Imagination" and encouraged us to think outside the box. At the show and tell, I showed a lap robe that had over 10,000

pieced 1-1/4" cut pieces. A lady who followed me said, "I quilt with small pieces also, but they have to be 1-1/2."

As I thought about what I could do for the show, I realized I did something that not many people in the guild do with small cut pieces. I asked a friend if she thought a quilt with 10,000 pieces would be out of the box and she said, "Go for it." I then had to figure how big a quilt that would make and eventually came up with this quilt. I also thought that I really don't need a quilt this big. About that

time, Kelly Hauer, executive director of the Eastern Iowa Alzheimer's Association, had a column in the Cedar Rapids Gazette about the growing number of Alzheimer's caregivers in Iowa. So with her okay, I made this quilt and donated it to the Alzheimer's Association for a fundraiser.

Description of Quilt:

This is my version of an 'out-of-the-box' queen size quilt. The over 14,000 individually cut squares and sashing are a small representation of the 131,845 Alzheimer's caregivers in Iowa in 2011. There is no strip piecing. It has 210 blocks made up of 16-four patches, which equals 64 squares per block. Each outside block has its own border and the binding is made of scraps. I machine quilted it on the diagonal with my domestic machine.

It is made in honor of all caregivers and in memory of my husband, as I was his caregiver for almost two years. I have a passion for helping people in my remaining years and do many things to fulfill that mission. To God be the Glory.