The top photo is of one of the basket embroidery blocks she made sometime before her death in 1932. They appear to be embroidered on a linen. I don't know if that's why they never made it into a quilt. They will need to be squared up since they vary from about 11 inches high to almost 13 inches wide. Twelve blocks--identical except for the ribbons on the baskets--two each in 6 different colors.
The second block is part of a completed quilt top. The blocks are about 4.5 inches set in a checkerboard with a very wide border of the same rose colored highly polished, incredibly soft cotton.
She passed away after a long bout with cancer. My dad was 10 years old. How appropriate is it that her rose/pink quilt top is pink--although we think her cancer started as cervical cancer.
When I was a child, this quilt top was stored in the attic of our 1918 four-square farm house. I used to love going up there to play on rainy days--in spite of all the dust. I'd decided when I was two-and-a-half that I'd make quilts when I grew up, but I've waited decades to do this one. I confess that it will not be hand quilted, but I'm getting better at machine quilting--and I know more and have more ideas about how to do this one than I did years ago.
I'll probably set the blocks with alternate blocks. We'll make those decisions later. No big hurry for blocks that have already been around more than 70 years!
Happy quiltmaking.......
2 comments:
I love the embroidery! I too have several quilt tops and blocks that were made by my Grandma and her mother and sisters, which all date to the 30s. I haven't yet decided what to do with all of them - a couple of the tops are fragile and a couple still have the newspaper templates on the back of some of the pieces! Karin
Wonderful history lesson ! I am thrilled that you have this legacy of your grandmother's handwork.
I don't have anything of my grandmother's except wooden thread spools that a cousin recently sent to me. But, MY grandkids could come out feeling like they won the lottery, with all the unquilted tops I have made and not finished !
By the way, one of my friends is having the same trouble with commenting on MY site and others, but I'm still getting SOME comments. I don't know what the problem is.
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