The YA YA Sisterhood Diva Quilters (DQ)

The YA YA Sisterhood Diva Quilters Story~

I have 5 siblings, 4 sisters and 1 brother (don't feel too sorry for him, he was a middle child and got plenty of attention). I am the oldest and we are all very close in age, mom was quite busy those 9 years.

Back in the 90's when I was getting into serious quilting, I painstakingly made my Mom a lovely machine appliqued and machine quilted topper. Mom was very pleased and said, "that would be so pretty in a full-size quilt for my bed." The idea was born that my sisters and I (all of us enjoyed sewing, some more than others) should band together and make the quilt. We had worked on the quilt off and on for a few years and at one of the meetings I had a brainstorm that we should have a name for our family group...thus the Ya Ya Sisterhood Diva Quilters (DQ) was born. (Oh yeah, I had a written pledge and everything.) The DQ part has double meaning because whenever we would get together in our home town we would inevitably find ourselves at the local Dairy Queen for lunch and/or ice cream...it has always been a hangout for our family and we have literally spent hours there in one sitting.

Anywho...because we all lived in NY state we could take turns hosting the Ya Ya's sewing event. How long could it possibly take to make a quilt if we all met on a regular basis? After all, the quilt block had ONLY 10 PIECES to applique, not including the background square...AND..she would like it to fit her full size bed, with enough room to tuck the pillows and drape a few inches from the floor. The quilt was given to her on Christmas 2003, a mere 7 years since we started the process.

Turns out you can learn a lot about your sisters in meetings like that. There was lots of laughter, tears, and a little sprinkle of mmm....catfights is too strong a word.....disagreements is better. I recall the "pin incident" quite clearly....NO...do NOT...sew over pins....with...MY machine, said Ya Ya #1 (me) to Ya Ya #2! 'Nough said 'bout the rockier times. (I have great respect and admiration for all of my YA YA sisters and they are each endearing and each possess qualities that I love them for.)

Now as we got closer to the end of making mom's quilt we decided we should all band together and make quilts for each other in a similar fashion. OK, let's draw names. Turns out the after the names were drawn mine came out first...and went almost all in succession and rank in the sibling order. It was agreed we would just start with mine and go in order of birth. It was also agreed that each sister would pick an easy pattern to insure there would be no more 7 year quilts. Mine was super easy and the queen size top was completed within a year, in fact in 2 weekends of sewing. Oh yeah, and during that time we hooked up two new members, Ya Ya #3's oldest daughter and my (Ya Ya #1) daughter. Cool-- now we could get more accomplished sew much faster in our "family sweat shop"....YAY!

So far the Ya Ya's have done a quilt for me, and a wedding quilt for sister #2's oldest son, sister #3's oldest daugher, and a "manly" quilt for a family friend. The Ya Ya's are currently on sister #2's quilt which we have been working on since 2004. This block with 37 pieces is beautiful yes, easy, no.... I am confident that the Ya Ya's will get back on track and get it completed.

THE BLOCK




See more of the Ya Ya quilts here...

This blog will have regular updates on the Ya Ya's.