LABOR OF LOVE PRODUCES FAMILY HISTORY QUILT

The Brown family quilt is proudly displayed in Idell Dockins' home.

Idell Dockins decided the first quilt she made was going to be memorable. So she decided to depict her family history. No small task when you grew up in a family that had 17 children, 14 of which lived past infancy.

It took her one year and three months to complete and she still hasn't had a chance to show off her handiwork to her entire family, yet.

The quilt features family photos and other mementos on the front and a family tree and family story written on the back.

"Our mother and dad, through actions and words, made us feel that each of us was part of the family unit and that we were not to do anything to bring shame or disrespect to this union," states the story on the back of the "Brown Family Quilt."

Dockins said sewing the script names took the most time, but also collecting and keeping track of the family photos was a time consuming task.

Some days she would work all day through the night and other days when things weren't coming together well she would only work on it for a short time.

"I learned a lot of things on this one. When I make another one I'll be better," Dockins said.

Dockins created this quilt by hand and sewing machine, but she's modernizing her methods for the future. She's now learning a computer program that helps with designs. After she's decided upon a pattern she takes a card from the computer and plugs it into her sewing machine and it churns out the pattern. She said she'll use this new technology on future projects.

The photos for the family quilt were taken to a printing company in Cape Girardeau and they were reduced or enlarged and printed on transfer paper.

From there, Dockins took the photos to another business in Cape Girardeau where the images were hot stamped to the cloth.

She then took the cloth with the family pictures back to her home where she fashioned a quilt out of old neckties, velvets and other material along with the cloth photographs.

There are pictures of the different homes the family lived in. Pictures of her parents, her siblings, nephews, nieces, grandchildren, great-grandchildren and even her father's last driver's license populate the quilt. In all 72 people are represented on the quilt.

The quilt's history begins with the marriage of her parents on March 18, 1905, and continues up until now.

"Many family memories came back to me. It was like a trip back in time," she said.

Of her 10 living siblings, only Shelby Brown, Leslie Rigsbey, Jeffrey Welker and Beatrice Welker have seen the work.

"I think it's a masterpiece of art and hard work," Dockins' oldest brother Shelby said.

Dockins has had many businesses ask if they can display the quilt and she plans to enter it in the River City Quilting Guild Show at Centenary Methodist and next year she plans to display the quilt at Paducah, Ky., at the annual quilt festival held there.