Woman Creates Special National Guard Quilt

</element><element id="paragraph-1" type="body"><![CDATA[A very special delivery was being made today to a family in Muncie, Ind.

It's a handmade quilt pieced together from the military career of Indiana National Guard Lt. Col. Kevin Extine, husband of Du Quoin native Diane (Barrett) Extine, Diane is the daughter of Don and Loretta Barrett of Du Quoin.

Mrs. Extine saved all of the T-shirts emblazoned with a combination of guard operation insignias, 5K runs and other special events during his career in the national guard.

Lt. Col. Extine served his country in Iraq in 2008. Kevin is currently Director of Military Support for the State of Indiana.

After sorting out all of the shirts and having them freshly cleaned, Diane made quilt blocks out of the ones that had meaning and others she just liked.

Once the quilt blocks were made she called upon nationally recognized local quilter Joy Upton to do the quilting. The result is stunning.

There are a total of 20 blocks framed all around in green. There are 16 large blocks and four blocks that contain four smaller blocks each. The larger blocks include the art from the front or back of a T-shirt. The smaller blocks contain shirt-pocket insignias or events. Upton used a stitched star pattern to complete the work.

Joy Upton presented the finished 64-by-80 quilt to Don Barrett Wednesday at the Du Quoin library. He and wife Loretta were headed to Indiana today to give the quilt to their daughter. Kevin's birthday is November 1. The couple were married in 1984.

Nobody expects Denise to wait until November 1 to give the one-of-a-kind gift to her husband. We wish we could be there.