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Tuesday, December 25, 2012

The quilt of generations

I can finally post about this quilt which took me all fall to make. About 3-4 years ago, I was given a stack of antique quilt blocks by my mother in law from her side of the family. We think they were assembled by her mother and possibly her grandmother too. There's really no telling how old these squares are. They were hand pieced and made from old flour sacks and work clothes. (They're fabulous).

The squares were amazing. But they'd also sat neglected for decades. This year I decided to assemble them into something my inlaws could appreciate. Their Christmas gift was a California King sized quilt made from 16 of the 30+ squares I have. Though the squares themselves weren't really in colors that suited my husband's parents' taste, I decided to make do and work with fabrics that drew the quilt into their color palette.
I traded fabric with friends and was able to shove all this fabric through my tiny machine's throat to make the top and back. Then to make sure these delicate squares would be forever preserved, I had my friend Lisa Alexakis quilt it on a longarm machine. She did a beautiful job and I was able to bind it and give it as a gift this Christmas.
I'm very excited about these squares being used finally. I'm also thrilled to be the one woman who finally finished this project after decades of women touching it and passing it down. It feels like I'm a part of a wonderful legacy. And now it finally gets to be used.