During 1989 I wrote 30 stories from my childhood memories growing up in the Fay-West area of Southwestern Pennsylvania. This is on the border of Fayette and Westmoreland Counties which is rich in bituminous or soft coal used for making coke--the hottest burning substance known back then. This coke was used to make steel in the mills at nearby Pittsburgh.
In early 1990 I illustrated each story with a sunbonnet Sue style quilt block creating my own designs as I went along. My hubby and I went to Ocean City, Maryland for a fall vacation in late October and while we were there, I decided the placement of the blocks and made the first one. Because I was doing tedious hand-embroidery I only worked on these blocks while we traveled and so they went all over the world until I completed the final one in Poznan, Poland in May 2003. After returning home to Laurel, Maryland, I assembled the quilt and published a book of patterns along with the stories in time to offer them for sale during the centennial celebration of the town where I spent most of my younger years. This was Everson, Pennsylvania, where my father was born. My mother and I were born in the adjoining town of Scottdale, but we moved to South Everson when I was six months old so although I spent a lot of time in Scottdale going to the YMCA for swimming and Girl Scouts, I lived in South Everson.
The main character in the book and on the quilt is "Bonnie Sue" a little girl who represents me and the others are "Lucy" my cousin; "Patty" and "Bea" two neighborhood friends; "Dolly" a girl who went to grade school with Lucy and to high school with all of us; "Donnie" the boy who lived next door to me at one time; my parents; my dog, my cat and Lucy's mother, "Aunt Stell."
This quilt was displayed at the 50-year reunion of the Scottdale High School Class of 1956 and I donated a book as a door prize which was won by classmate, Dotty Kimball Cochran. Only the six center blocks were completed as I am doing all the work by hand. The little blocks at the bottom of pages in this web site and the large block shown at the top of the home page are all blocks from this quilt.
