After I retired from the Army, I immediately went to work as a civilian doing essentially the same thing except no more jumping out of airplanes or saluting. Instead of fatigues, I adopted the civilian costume of office workers and wore ties. Sure, I’d had to wear a tie as a soldier in various situations but now it was serious business. To my dismay, there was some freakish bigotry associated with the color and style of ties. It took some time but eventually I caught on and over the next 10 years, accumulated a nauseatingly large collection of colorful nooses. When I retired, I gave freely to the Good Will but still had a pile of them in the closet. Textile monuments to my time working for the man.
Enter the heroine of this story, Princess Lori. Adding to her already abundant skills, she had taken up quilting and had decided that some subtle torture of her unquestionably devoted husband was in order. She took some of my “favorite” ties and cut them into small chunks (yeah me!) and then…made them into a quilt.
Although I was invited to provide some of my very special brand of OCD to her creative process, the bulk of the project was all her own devious design. Oddly, when it was done, each of the ties brought to life some memories of specific events of my career as a “suit”. Probably symptoms of PTSD or a manifestation of the Stockholm Syndrome but also some fond memories of key events and some very exceptional people.
Anyway, this is that quilt. She’s gone on to make some extraordinary examples of quilt-age that you’ll read about later, but this one is mine.