I guess you can tell from my silliness that it's sunny outside. The forecast this week was for overcast and rain every day, but there's been sun every day too, which improves my mood 100%.
I have finished stitching the triangles! All that is left is the outlining with metallic, which hopefully won't take too long. After all this work I'm not even sure I like this temari... and my family couldn't say if they liked it yet or not either. I'm trying to withhold judgement until after it is finished.
At our guild meeting on Monday, Georgeann lead our workshop on Shadow Trapunto. The kit was lovely, and very complete, and doing the quilting was very relaxing. It also brought to mind the first time I did quilting.
When I was in college I asked my grandma to make me a quilt. I knew she had made quilts, because I have a vivid memory of the quilt I used to sleep under every time I got the roll-away bed in her basement. It was white and bright peach (such 50s colors!) with a scalloped edge. So I thought making a quilt would not be a big deal for her.
I had picked out a block pattern and fabrics, and when she agreed to do it, I sent them to her. That was the beginning of a wonderful experience. It didn't take her long to get the blocks done, and then she asked me about the size, and the setting (?) and then the quilting pattern (???) and then the backing (?) and then if I wanted to come and quilt it with her. All the questions were a learning experience in themselves.
I loved the invitation to come and quilt, so I arranged to spend my spring break in NW Iowa. It was just the two of us, and after the breakfast dishes were done in the morning we would spend the rest of the day around the quilting frame set up in the living room. I learned things about my grandma that I'm not even sure my dad knows, and I saw all her needlework treasures. We talked and talked, and got about half the blocks quilted in the week I was there.
She didn't ask what to use for batting. It has a flannel blanket (like they use in hospitals) inside. Come to think of it, she used to work in a hospital, so that's probably where it came from. It's plenty warm.
Here's a corner of the quilt. (very 70s colors!)
There are also brown leaves, and I see that the binding should be mended right at the bottom.
I'm going to have to find a way to get a picture of the whole quilt. Every time I look at this quilt, the memories keep me as warm as the quilt does. It also lead me to try quilting myself. I'll share next time.
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1 comment:
You should keep a notebook in which to write things you and Grandma talked about, I think. Opa was able to tell his sibs things they didn't know, but we would all like to know more, i.e., why was it so hard for her to talk about her earlier life, etc. You are the depository of some of those memories. As for flannel sheets, we all switched from cotton sheets to flannel in winter. Very cozy in an unheated bedroom! By the time you did your quilt, they were getting hard to find.
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