Sewing With Nancy

Some people think of sewing and quilting as stitching two pieces of fabric together, but it can be much more. Please welcome four students from the Belleville Middle School who learn life skills of communication, history, sacrifice of veterans, and quilting all in one amazing project. Welcome to Sewing With Nancy. We have Adrianna Herritz, Josh Kean-- see if I can get these names right. Jacob Kean. - Jacob Kean. I'm sorry. I'm sorry. Then we have Raina. Raina Nicholson. And Erica Long. Welcome. Welcome, Jacob. - Thank you. Now, this is an interesting project, because it was a project that started in a history class. Tell us a little bit about it. It almost started with you, actually. We talked a bit about how, every year, the eighth grade has done some sort of quilting thing, and our teacher, Mr. Gentilli, showed us a video from a few years ago where a couple of people, who had now graduated by then, were on this very show. And they made some quilts, and they did history and research, and... Adrianna, tell us a little bit what-- how you researched. Um, so... We had to ask our veterans questions at home, keeping the whole project a secret from them so they wouldn't know what was going on. And then we would go to school. On Thursdays, we'd take a field trip to the library, and we'd either read books or go online and research on different websites that were credible. And I must mention that they are doing research on Quilts of Valor for three veterans. They made three interesting quilts. And, Erica, the first quilt we're gonna see is a quilt for your dad. Yeah. And tell us a little bit about your dad and where he served. My dad was in the Air Force for 25 years, and he was in... Well, first off, we had to move around a lot. Oh, sure. And he was in Operation Desert Shield, Desert Storm, Provide Promise, an d a couple other more things, and it's just something that, you know, this project has made me learn so much about my dad and want to appreciate him even more than I already do. And you did research on the quilt project. A friend of yours, or a classmate of yours did the design of that quilt. Yeah. And then you went to a store, a store in local-- and they were a great help. Tell us about that a little bit, Jacob. The people at Patches and Petals, which is a very local quilt store to us, were very helpful, very kind. They donated their time every Thursday to help us make sure that this was a good experience. And, Raina, you made a quilt, or a quilt was given in honor of your grandpa. Mm-hmm. But not just the four of you worked on it; it was a number of students. The entire eighth grade class all got a chance to work on the quilt, either sewing or ironing or picking out fabric that would go best within the quilt. And you told me all earlier that you've never really quilted before or sewn before, and these are amazing quilts. Raina, your grandpa really did an amazing thing. He guarded Martin Luther King, Jr. And that-- you learned about this during the history and so forth. Yeah, I thought it was very interesting because, as a child, he had told me about how he had guarded Martin Luther King, Jr., and I thought, you know, as a kid, that was really cool, so I wanted to try to honor him with that. And, Adrianna, you then designed with the language arts class, history class. You did a presentation of these quilts. So after we had done all our research, which was about three or four weeks of research in and out of class, we then went into our groups depending on what block you were in, and we designed our presentations. We added the information we thought was important. So, Erica, did you get to give the quilt to your dad? Yes, we-- the way it went is, we did our presentations-- we had our finalized presentations, and we went onstage, we presented, and then at the end of it, each of us got to give our quilts to our dads or grandfather, and we wrapped it around them. Aww.

chuckles

I bet they were surprised. How about your grandpa? Yeah, my grandpa really enjoyed his quilt. And I remember, like, a couple days after we had done the presentation, I had went to his house, and I had showed him every single piece and, like, what it meant for him and, like, for me, 'cause there's a music block on there that he really liked because he's listened to his son and me play, like, the piano and guitar, and he really enjoys that, so... And, Jacob, what was the best part of it for you? It was... It was fun to get out of class every Thursday, of course... Sure, of course. But it was a really sort of touching, inspiring thing that... we've got these people and we don't thank them nearly enough. This is the highest award a civilian can give to a veteran, and it was inspiring. Well, this Quilts of Valor program that you worked on with history and language, I'm impressed, and thank you for being with us. And thank you for watching. I hope you will be back with our second program of "Rainbow Quilts for Scrap Lovers." You can always go to NancyZieman.com and re-watch this segment with these great kids. And, as always, thanks for joining me. Bye for now.