Granny's Quilts

 As I mentioned earlier, today it has been ten years since my dear mother-in-law passed away. She was a precious lady and fortunately, we had a wonderful relationship. We also both had a love of sewing and eventually quilting together. She made clothes for many many years, from baby clothes to adult men's suits, and was an expert seamstress.

 This butterfly quilt is one she made when she was 12 years old using the blanket stitch by hand. Her grandmother taught her how to do this. It is a bed size quilt and these are just a few blocks. In the 1990s, I scanned the butterfly and taught this as a class.

The dahlia star (I'm not sure this is the correct name) is another quilt she made in her younger days.

However, as the years went on, she did not make quilts again until the 1980s and she took a class and made one all by hand. Every single stitch, even sewing the binding down. I'll have to show that another day. These are pictures I scanned as they were taken so long ago. We forget how nice digital prints are!
My husband's favorite pattern is the double wedding ring! After I had two failed attempts at getting mine to lay flat, she took the pattern and pieced this quilt all by hand. Now that's a lot of hand work. She gave it to him for his birthday and then I began hand quilting the top. It was taking quite a long time so she and my father-in-law came up and stayed a week and we quilted all day long until we got it finished. What a treasure! It is king size.

 Next is a quilt called Weaver Fever - the pattern by Jackie Robinson. I taught this class in 1995, according to the photo date. She was up visiting so joined in the class and made this delightful quilt. She liked it so well that she made a second one also.

 Now here below is one of her quilts, made not long after my father-in-law passed away in 1997. She came to stay for a while and we decided quilting would be good therapy (it always is for me) so we got to quilting. She loved pink and pastels and began this beautiful basket quilt. She did not like to have her picture made so you can see below she is shying away from the camera a little.

Anyway, we had many wonderful times together not only quilting but just enjoying each other's company. I admired the fact that no matter her age, she would say she wanted to keep her mind sharp and learn something new. As a quilter and working in a quilt shop, I was always finding new projects or techniques and so we would have private lessons and she was such a good student.
Best of all, was her gift of sharing and giving. She made many more quilts but shared them (as most quilters do) with others.
Some of the pieces in the string quilt I am making came from these quilts so again, that makes it special!  I know she would be happy knowing it was being finished. This is just a tiny tiny bit of her story but I wanted to share it by remembering her and her quilts!!