Cherrywood Challenge 2024

For five years now I have created art quilts with various themes to enter in the annual Cherrywood Challenges. Cherrywood fabric is made by a small company in Minnesota and is 100% cotton that is hand-dyed to look like suede. Visit www.cherrywoodfabrics.com to shop and for more information.

What I love about their challenges:

Takes me out of my comfort zone
Allows me to use creativity that is sometimes buried deep inside me
Fabric is GORGEOUS!
Supports a small business
IT IS FUN!

This year's challenge had a poppies theme. Originally I was going to do a 3-D type poppy but then decided to go the rememberance route and honor my grandfather who served in WWII and was on Normandy Beach on D-Day. He lived through the horrific day and was able to write about it.

We came on D-Day about 2pm. Things were still plenty hot when we landed. Big shells were landing quite close and kept us pinned to the ground. We were on the beach about an hour and the whole time we were there the big guns kept firing. It was really awful for awhile. For the first time I my life, I was really scared. I think that every man who hit the beach D-Day was scared. Even those who had been through it before.

During the time we were on the beach, we dug in as the shells kept bursting around us. Don’t let anyone tell you that you can’t dig with your hands. I know, for I did it that day. I dug a hole in the sand and gravel just deep enough to get below the surface and stayed there until we were ordered to move ahead. We then proceeded to our next stopping place just short ways above the beach line.

There we encountered numerous mine fields and had to probe the area before we dug in. You couldn’t be too careful for the German soldiers had really planted the mines thick. I finally got my area probed and began to dig. I dug for two hours without even stopping for a smoke. For we didn’t know when the they would start throwing stuff at us again. Things began to quiet down until it began to get dark, then the Germans came over and bombed and strafed the beach. They kept it up most of the night and the sky was red all night with ack-ack fire. No one slept at all that night for it was impossible.

This was the way I found France on D-Day and the first night.

Private First Class Carl Martin Wilcox, Jr.

December 7, 1942 - World War II

All of my previous challenges were accepted and traveled all over the US. Princess Diana got to go all the way to France and YES I was a bit jealous since I've never been there. The 2023 Monarch Butterfly challenge actually got a staff choice award so I was super excited about that!