Tuesday, March 2, 2010

A weight off my shoulders ...


For months, I have been working on this quilt.  Granted, I worked on it in spurts ... moments of time here and there when the moment was right and all was quiet around here.  You see, my great-great-Grandmother and my great-Grandmother were both quilters.  Not like me, they did everything by hand.  And it was how they made their livings, and they were good at it.  In fact, my great-Grandmother was still quilting until she died at the age of 99.  Could you imagine?

Anyway, my grandmother never took up quilting.  Sure, she could sew (I'm sure she was taught, although I never saw her do it).  Her "thing" was crocheting and raising kids - she had 4 (3 of them were boys - so I KNOW that was work). 

I used to live with my Grandma, briefly, in 1995 when I was transitioning from being a kid and growing into an adult.  I hadn't found my niche in life, and it was a great time for her and I to be together.  We had a lot of fun that year ... we went so far as to decorate everything in purple for Christmas.  We were a couple of crazy girls, I tell ya.



Last August, when I started sewing and quilting, I thought it would be wonderful to make a quilt for my Grandma.  She was worried that the art of quilting would be lost in our family, since no one else had made an effort to learn.  I surprised her last fall with a letter and a picture of the quilt that I was working on for her ... I promised it for Christmas ... then time got away from me. 

Luckily, her birthday is April Fool's Day.  How funny, right?  So, now that her quilt is finished, it's turned into a VERY late Christmas / birthday present.  She doesn't mind, and I'm sure she'll love her quilt as it's very cold up there in Ohio right now. 

So, Grandma - enjoy your little quilt from me and remember that while I was stitching this, I thought of nothing else but our time together. 


1 comment:

Cheerful Homemaker said...

What a beautiful quilt! I taught myself to quilt several years ago and love it. It's such a wonderful hobby.