Wisconsin Quilt

We lived in La Crosse, Wisconsin, for one year and we wish it could've been longer.  We loved everything about it, except for the winter that lasted for 6 months and the bazillions of mosquitoes that descended upon us during the muggy summers.

I started quilting in La Crosse and tried my first paper piecing project with this candy box heart pattern.

Don't you just love quilts with legs?!  Anyway, I usually avoid anything with hearts, but this was a special group project.  We wanted the young women at church to have an ongoing service experience.  Somehow we found out that the Renal Dialysis Unit at Gundersen Lutheran Hospital was drab and needed some holiday decor to cheer up patients who spent many hours at a time there.

We kicked off this partnership by taking a tour of the unit and learning about dialysis.  Then, after that, each month we would devote one of our weekly meetings to making decorations and one of them to decorating the unit.

We worked on the quilt together during a few of our weekly meetings.  I know we taught the girls how to applique and they made most of the star blocks.  I think some of them also helped sew the 4-patch blocks.  I can't remember if I made all the hearts or if we taught some of them to do that too. 

We gave this quilt to the unit to hang on the wall permanently.  I wonder if it's still there?  I hope the girls and other leaders cherish this experience as I much as I do.