The Extra X / Beauties Pageant 209

 

As many of you know, I have the privilege of raising a son with Down syndrome. This past week, on March 21, my family and I celebrated our special guy, along with the rest of the DS community, for World Down Syndrome Day.

I introduced the quilting community to my personal experience raising a child with special needs back in 2018, when I shared my 47XY+21 project. And, really, I thought that was the only quilt I would make on the subject. When I was designing the PDF pattern for my Still Pretty Simple Jelly Roll Quilt, however, I realized that the blocks could be arranged to form an X, and that sparked an idea for a second quilt.

Down syndrome is caused by a genetic anomaly at conception (or very soon thereafter) that causes an extra chromosome on the 21st pair of a person’s chromosomes. Chromosomes are often depicted as Xs because they take on that shape during mitosis, so this quilt and the large X on it pay tribute to my son’s bonus chromosome.

I suspect that’s what many people who meet him first see: his disability and how that plays out in his life. But the message of this project is found in the quilting. In a process detailed here, I FMQed 20 different words and phrases over this 62-inch by 70-inch quilt:

• Son
• Brother
• Grandson
• Nephew
• Friend
• Neighbor
• Student
• Classmate
• Reader
  
• Explorer
• Comedian
• Animal lover
• Music lover
• Dancer
• Basketball player
• Bowler
• Mini-golfer
• Train aficionado
• Trick-show enthusiast
• Child of God
  

The quilting was my way of telling the world that you don’t have to look too hard to see that there’s much more to my son than his diagnosis. He’s a son, a brother, a friend, a student, and many other things that enrich both his life and the lives of those around him.

It’s important to me to shed light on what it’s like raising a child with special needs. I never would have self-selected for this challenge, but my son’s birth and diagnosis have been some of the best things to happen to me. Raising this child has changed me as a wife, a mother, and a person. And the world is a better place with my son in it. 

Related links:

• 47XY+21 (my first project about DS)
• Still Pretty Simple Jelly Roll Quilt pattern (a $3 almost-free-for-charity pattern with proceeds to support DS)
• A Free-Motion Quilting Success! (on how I FMQed the words on this quilt)

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