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When Melinda Bula's son (and only child) decided to join the Marines after college, she made this quilt to deal with her emotions. The image depicts the American flag, tattered but still flying, above a battlefield, and Melinda lovingly dedicates it to all military families.
"I never planned on selling this quilt. I made it just for me and my son, to help me deal with the thought that my only child was going to be a Marine and probably go off to war. That was very difficult for me to handle but as all quilters do when faced with challenges; I went to the studio and put my feeling into cloth. There are tears in that fabric.
I looked at all kinds of patriotic subject matter before I realized it HAD to be a flag.
My idea was to visualize this quilt years later on the wall in my son’s office when he is an old man. We both made it through the trial of war and came out the other side.
I started to take the quilt with me on the road when I did trunk shows around the country. I had no idea the emotion it would cause in others as I showed it. It was overwhelming and very special, so this quilt is for all the mothers and fathers and brothers and sisters of soldiers through all the wars who, like me, have given their loved ones for our country to be free. This quilt is not mine, it’s ours!
It took me 3 months to make this quilt. My technique is a painting technique without using any paint. I am just using fabric as my paint. I fuse the fabrics and cut out my brush stroke with scissor instead of a paint brush. I am layering fabrics on top of fabrics. It’s a fusible appliqué technique.
I use rayon 30 weight thread, which is shinny and a little thicker than normal thread, to sketch in the details, highlights and shadows. I hand dyed most of the fabrics for this quilt to get just the right colors. My inspiration came from an old vintage picture I had of an American flag."