DIY Network

DIY Women: Remembering 9/11, Stitch-by-Stitch

Like millions of other Americans horrified by the events of September 11, 2001, Susan Lapham felt helpless. Just across the Potomac River from her office at the U.S. Department of Transportation in Washington, D.C., hijacked American Airlines Flight 77 had slammed into the Pentagon, killing 189 employees and 64 flight passengers.

As a director with the Bureau of Transportation Statistics (BTS) at the time, Lapham was called on immediately to tackle air-security data. She did her duty and then some, working intense 18-hour days. But the depth of that day tugged her emotionally: she still felt the pain and yearned to reach out somehow.

(Story continued below.)

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	Susan Lapham
	Stacy Murphy
	Quilt-in-progress
	A square honoring one of those who perished, "Darlene", features a pentagon surrounding a heart. It reads: "Sister, Mother, Wife, Daughter."
	The "Hearts and Hands Across the Potomac" quilt.

To express her deepest sorrow, Lapham looked to a long-time hobby: quilting.

"I was trying to contrast the work that I was doing with the numbers, and I thought, what could we do for the people?" says Lapham (who has since left the bureau). She came up with Hearts and Hands Across the Potomac, a memorial quilt measuring more than 80 square feet and dedicated to the 74 women who perished on Flight 77 and at the Pentagon.

Lapham took the idea to Stacy Murphy, an administrative specialist at BTS, who wasted no time organizing the details and rallying others to lend a creative hand. Four women, including Lapham, were on sewing duty, but 60-plus BTS employees helped by designing squares. In the end, there were 84 nine-by-nine-inch squares created for the final pattern, and five months later, a quilt to show off.

The American flag sits squarely in the center, and surrounding blocks decorated in red, white and blue colors evoke feelings of patriotism and unity. From the top left corner to the bottom right, bright yellow stars -- each inscribed with a victim’s name -- cascade in tribute over the squares.

The name of 27-year-old Melissa Rose Barnes, a naval officer who died at the Pentagon, rests next to a teddy bear with a red jewel placed on its heart. Darlene E. Flagg, a housewife from Millwood, Virginia, who lost her life onboard the plane, has a star next to a red pentagon with a blue-and-white-striped heart in the middle. There are mostly imaginative shapes of hearts and hands to coincide with the theme, but some crafted birds, stars and kitties as well.

The process proved therapeutic and rewarding for the women, says Murphy, who had just started her job a day before the tragedy.

"When you donate money, it doesn’t make you feel good," she says. "This touched me. I felt like I was part of something that allowed the women of the department to heal together."

The group had the honor of unveiling the quilt to the Department of Defense in concert with Women’s Equality Day, on August 27, 2002. Today it joins about 120 other memorial quilts located in the Pentagon near the site of the impact.

As the fourth anniversary of 9/11 draws near, the quiltmakers can’t help remembering the tragedy; Stacy Murphy admits it’s still emotional for her. But thankfully they can also look back on happy memories of the fellowship and teamwork it took to pull off their artistic dedication.

"It was an amazing moment," Lapham says. "What we did mattered."

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