There was one event I participated in on that day for which I will be forever grateful. My godson, Logan, was born on Sept. 11, 2000. Born at 27 weeks, he had survived and thrived despite the obstacles of being a super-premie. On 9-11 we went to his home to celebrate his first birthday. I will always remember that in the middle of intense fear and despair, we were gifted with the opportunity to celebrate life. And when he says now that he hates his birthday because of what happened a year after he was born, I remind him that his life, and the lives of all of our children, are the reasons why we haven’t just survived in post 9-11 America (and the other nations under attack). Instead we thrive and prosper in ways we may not have discovered had we not faced this adversity. It was a painful, powerful moment in our history, and it should never be forgotten, but each of us is so much more than our painful past. We are also the leaders of our children’s future.

Megan's palette

Megan Dougherty–Back in 2001, I was still an optician, and so didn’t have to be at work until 10 a.m. I had just gotten out of bed, showered and was settling down to eat and read a book before walking to the bus stop when my husband called from work to tell me to turn on the TV. It was just after the second plane had hit the World Trade Center.

I spent the rest of the day at work trying to get news from anyone who came into the shop. We had no Internet and lousy radio reception. Our shop had another branch in Washington, D.C., and the husband of one of our employees there worked at the Pentagon, and we prayed all day that she would be able to reach him and find him safe (and she did, eventually). We shared anything we heard back and forth all day long. They told us that a plane had hit the Capitol building; we said that a customer told us a bomb had gone off at the Treasury. The city and state government offices around us finally decided to close, but we were told to stay open. Apparently, nothing stops the wheels of retail, not even unimaginable tragedy.

When I was finally able to go home, my husband and I immediately went to the apartment of some close friends. I don’t even think they asked us to come or that we asked if we could. It was understood that we all needed to be together. And there we did what I imagine most people did that same evening, all over the country and even in much of the world: we held on to each other. I wasn’t yet a quilter then, wouldn’t be for several more years yet. And though I wrote the occasional short story, I didn’t have nearly the ease with words that I have now. So I can only wonder, had I possessed those tools, what I would have done with them in the wake of all that happened that day. But I can remember how strong the need was to give, to help, and all I had to offer, it seemed, was blood.

Melissa'a palette

Melissa Thompson Maher–We’d only lived in Albuquerque a few months, and we didn’t know our neighbors very well yet. I was still unpacking and organizing the house. I had walked my youngest daughter to the bus stop that morning, and had missed the news of the first plane hit. As the bus was pulling away, a neighbor came rushing up with his son and daughter. The driver stopped and let the children board. My neighbor explained that they’d gotten so caught up in the news, watching what was going on in New York. New York? Where our two eldest (my stepchildren) lived? He gave me the brief highlights and I ran all the way home so I could check  in with the big kids.

I left phone messages and later heard from my stepdaughter. She had been walking to work, and had seen the second plane fly by on its way to the Towers. I got very little unpacking done in the days that followed, dividing my time between the television and our front deck, where we could see the stealth jets take off from nearby Kirtland Air Force Base on their increased security rounds around the state. It was a little hard to reconcile the flashing blue strobes of the jets juxtaposed against the peace of the scrubby, rocky Sandia Mountains near the east end of the base grounds–and with the chaos taking place elsewhere.

A few days later, we joined some new neighbors–whose home was a meeting place for a Ba’hai congregation–in a multidenominational prayer service for the victims.

I was not yet a quilter then, but I did have that quilterly impulse to reach out and create comfort for others. A few months later, I got my daughter and some of her friends busy making tied fleece blankets for Project Linus, because at that time, I was not a part of the quilting community and didn’t know where else to send our blankets.

Another version of Scott's block

Scott Hansen–I so clearly remember that morning. I was driving to work and listening to the radio…good music, poor news coverage. I heard them say that a plane had hit a building in New York. I imagined a little Cessna or something. Then I had turned the radio off because I was sick of  all the commercials on that station. It was early here in Seattle, so I didn’t really hear anything more until my morning employee’s teenage daughter called and told her the news. But even then, it was still hard to believe, and as it progressed, even harder to believe. I remember how suddenly everyone wanted flags. I had already owned quite a few myself, but as it was the end of the summer season they were pretty hard to find.

I was just so stunned. I made a bunch of red/white/blue blocks for my guild, which put together a ton of quilts to send back to families who had suffered loss. I really wish we could go back to 9/10/01. My brother had died about five years earlier, and I felt that the quilt that I had made to deal with his passing had done its healing for me, so it was time to share that healing with someone else who lost someone they loved. I also remember making a couple of paper-pieced red/white/blue ribbon pins. I loved the solidarity we seemed to have as a nation then. Seems like it has all disappeared lately.

Share your own memories of how quilting and stitching got you through this day, either at the end of this post or on our Facebook page. United we stitch.