Erma’s Family Tree

A friend from church contacted me and said she was making a family tree and was wondering if I knew of a place she could find fabric with large cardinals printed on it. Erma is one of those wonderful women who organize meals and events at church behind the scenes without wanting any attention placed on herself. She truly does it for the glory of God, and has many amazing gifts. As it turns out sewing and quilting are not among her many gifts 😊. Erma is not a quilter, she doesn’t even have a sewing machine. So she found a queen size sheet and gathered fabric and clothing from thrift stores to use in her family tree. She put most of the “appliqués” on with fabric glue (she didn’t even use the term appliqué), and hand stitched others. The fabrics were definitely not quilter’s cottons. When I first saw it there were only a few leaves on the tree which was perched upon her lovely grass. I was amazed at how much she’d accomplished by just making it up as she went along. I wish I’d taken a photo of it at that point, but I didn’t think to ~ so here’s a photo of it finished:

My first thought was “how is she going to layer and quilt this with her lack of sewing knowledge. The answer was easy ~ she wasn’t! She wanted to simply make it on the sheet and hang it at the family reunion. I decided I would help and encourage in any way I could. She wanted to add cardinals to represent the family members who had passed away. They needed to be 5” tall and I was pretty sure she’d have a hard time finding fabric with cardinals that size ~ so I offered to repliqué them for her. It was just such an honor to be a part of this sweet project.

She cut the leaves from a variety of green garments she found rummaging and wrote the names and birthdates of each family member on their leaf with fabric marker before glueing them in place.

It was completed in time for the reunion. Erma hung it in a prominent place and family members had their photograph taken with the tree (this is not Erma, but a member of the Weakley family).

I didn’t find out the tree had been completed until after the reunion, and that’s when I asked Erma if I could feature it in my blog. Here is her response:

“You are more than welcome to share. With such a large family and so many generations I just thought a visual picture would help the young ones see they are a part of a group. So many people in so many directions but related all because 2 people grew in love.”

Thanks Erma! Your family tree is delightful and I’m sure it was a blessing to many!