Submitted by: Vivian Bringslimark

With 2026 being the 250th birthday of America, I wanted to get a head start on Patriotic Quilts for Veterans in Greenacres, FL. The Palm Beach County Quilters Guild has an open invitation this year to donate patriotic quilts of our own creations for the “Ignite the Night” Celebration on July 4th in Greenacres.

It was the perfect opportunity to finish a donated kit and turn it around for our veterans. Or so I thought. My favorite needlework is counted cross stitch. It produces uniform stitches because the needle lands precisely where it’s supposed to. The threads in the canvas / Aida cloth help make this happen. Been stitching for years. More recently, I was successful with the fly stitch on a previous quilt project so how hard could the feather stitch be?

OMG, I turned into a stitching, b*tching diva. I hated my stitches so I ripped out every stitch 5 or 6 times over. The stitches did not get any better in fact it got worse. I spent 5 hours getting nowhere. I had to admit defeat and put it down until the next day.

But the embroidery book was wrong!
The next day I watched numerous tutorials and learned that my donated book on embroidery stitches was incomplete. No wonder I was struggling. I calmed down and decided that the fly stitch would be both functional and decorative. And I had a lot of previous experience with it.

Congratulations, I finished the star appliqué and managed to create a decent looking primitive effect. So, you would think that I’d cut and run. Finish it up and gladly deliver it to my partner in plenty of time.

In my heart I knew it was incomplete. Really? With the hours spent already, I could have pieced a much larger quilt top, I argued with myself!

Whether it was my ego or my hearts desire, I had to continue stitching the blue wool pieces since the kit donator also provided the blue pearle cotton “thread”. However, the instructions on what design to stitch left nothing to the imagination. Using a magnifying glass on the kit image, I could at least get an inkling for what to stitch. Back to my other needlework stitch book to find a pattern I could actually stitch confidently.

I found something and started stitching in the ditch with the double cross stitch. It went much better for me. But my heart sunk when my friend said, oh, I can hardly see your stitches. Why did you use blue? Sigh.

By now, I was “in for a penny, in for a pound”. Oh, I was in full EGO mode. Why stop now, I demanded. Why not continue embroidering more stitches in the stripes section? And to add insult to injury, I changed to embroidery floss from an unfamiliar manufacturer for me. What could go wrong? Well, I’m not in love with the “new to me” floss. And of course, all my perfectionism about uniform stitches came slamming back into my head after the first four stitches.

I really needed an intervention.

Primitive is not perfect. That’s the whole point. But not for me! It wasn’t until my Quilting Bee friend, Phyllis, said I needed to let go of my perfectionism. Over her shoulder, she said, this was my lesson to learn. And with that, she scooted out the door. I joked and said, you are right.

She was right. Every stitch after that, was not perfect. Not even close. But I had a new challenge to overcome. Do not rip out my stitches!! And you know what? I finished the remaining embroidery stitches. And that’s when I had an epiphany!

It occurred to me that
The veteran who gets this honor quilt could also think that his/her service in combat was probably not their favorite project either! Especially if they got injured and suffered losses. So, that changed everything for me.

Suddenly, I felt compelled to finish it. Couldn’t think of working on any other project until this was done. Even when I discovered that the kit shorted me on the flannel backing and I had to scrounge to find suitable flannel or when I discovered that wool stretches so I had to re-trim the honor flag for a proper binding. I hand finished the binding and attached the Palm Beach County Quilters Guild label. When I clipped the last piece of thread, I said hallelujah!

This project may be my most significant outreach lessons learned project so far. – VB