I've been at the 99% completion range for my latest quilt for ---well, some time now. It's a very sweet wonky star block made up of Anna Maria Horner's voiles in the deer print and the four square print. So soft. The baby arrived and the quilt just sat there looking at me accusingly, day after day. Finally, an unplanned trip from the new grandmother, my aunt, spurred me into action again. It really only took five quick minutes. Funny how that works.
Anyway, as I was putting the finishing touches on it, I thought about all the baby quilts my grandmother made in her lifetime. She had seven children who each had several children and we have since had our families. She made each of us a quilt for graduation, and then made each of our children a quilt upon their birth. All hand done. That's quite a legacy of quilts. And now I was happily filling her shoes, some eight years later. My last child, Ro was just an infant when we last visited her. She had at this point, lost the ability to retain information from her short term memory. About every five minutes, she would realize anew that we were with her. "Oh what a pretty baby!"
I was sad to see her this way, but thought that it is not such a bad thing to be profoundly happy each time she discovered us there again.
I remembered my aunts had thoughtfully set aside the last quilt she had worked on, for my daughter, and made sure I got it. I had tucked it away without the slightest clue of how I might go about finishing it, but knowing it was a treasure. So today, as I was sewing in my label and snipping wayward threads on my cousin's baby quilt, I remembered it. I thought, "wow, if that quilt is still in blocks, I could somehow work a grandma block into each quilt I do for the cousins." I know I would love to have a grandma block. I was surprised to find--I hadn't remembered at all what stage it was in---that it is already pieced,
quilt sandwiched to backing and pinned. And furthermore, I had been inspired to do this very pattern after seeing Katy's version here. I was going to use Heather Bailey's Nicey Jane with the huge roses.
You know what kept me from doing it? Vanity. Knowing I was going to give it away and realizing those curved pieces would give me fits, I put that quilt on the back burner for a time when I would feel less pressure.
Wouldn't that have been a great story? To finish up cousin Tash's quilt and get a wild urge to pull out Grandma's last quilt? And, people, those are big roses in that print up there.
Needless to say, I cannot undo the quilt for the sake of having blocks. I may be able to quilt it, though, and bind it. If I can just bring myself to remove those pins she put there.
Then I'll start on my own.
Wednesday, May 5, 2010
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very cool Dana. We have a few quilts from my husbands grandmothers...but oh what i wouldnt give to have some from my side of the family! good luck with finishing that gem!
ReplyDeleteloving that big star - it looks awesome!
ReplyDeleteI wish I had some quilts from my relatives. My aunt made my oldest a small one when she was born, but she's since given up quilting, such a shame because she is really good at it.