Mary Pat Leger

Mary Pat made this Eagle quilt, based on Cynthia's Land That I Love pattern, for her son. She shared her design inspiration and story: "I took your 'split rail' class last August at the New England quilt show put on by Close to Home Sewing Centers. At the time I also bought your kit for the flag and eagle quilt. I knew my son would love it, he was in the 101st division in the Army. Their patch has a Screaming Eagle on it. I knew when I showed him the picture on the kit he would say two things. First, 'No yellow stars, Mom.' To military people yellow stars are for dead soldiers. The 'Blue Star Service Flag' is replaced by the 'Gold Star Memorial Flag' when your serviceman/woman is killed in action. I assured him I could make the quilt with white stars in the corners. The second thing I was hoping he would not say but at the same time knew he would was, 'Can you make it a screaming eagle?' Thank you for ending our class by showing us how to break up a picture to create our own picture piecing design. So looking at his unit patch I made the eagle with an open beak, even including the tongue so you can see that it is screaming. I did all the piecing over my school vacation in December, and just finished up the quilting in June after school got out. I used an extra layer of high loft batting under the eagle to add to its 3-D effect."