Grandma Vera's Quilt

I was feeling a bit down several weeks ago, in part because I hadn't created something in so long. It was "Nana Day", so we headed to Jon's mom's home (E has school on T/Th, so we spend one day at Nana's and one at Grammy Boo's each week, b/c school is close to their homes). I told Cindy (Nana) that I was thinking of making a quilt for E's new room. She said, "Oh! I have to show you something" and took me to her storage room. She pulled out two large bags, one filled with crocheted items and one with quilt tops. Every piece had been made by Jon's paternal grandma, Vera. She was amazing at crocheting and quilting. Cindy gave E two doilies Vera had made, and then showed me the quilt tops. They were pretty, but the last one was my favorite. I didn't dare say anything, as I assumed they were all spoken for by her children. Then she surprised me by saying that the one I liked was the one she had been saving for Jon. She said she'd been wanting to get it quilted, rather than have it hiding in a storage room. The quilt had lots of yellow on it which is E's favorite color, plus lots of other cute colors for a little girl's room. So we figured E could use it even though it would really belong to her dad. We both got really excited about it, and hopped in the car to go to Material Girls to get some backing and binding fabric for the quilt. It didn't take long to find what we wanted: a floral purple backing and floral yellow binding. And we found out it could be dropped off at Material Girls on Saturday to be machine quilted for about $120.

We went home and prepared the backing and binding. As we looked more closely at the quilt, we realized that several of the 2" squares were cut from flour sacks that Vera may have purchased as early as the 1930's. This was very interesting to me and I want to learn more about it, but you can read a brief description of the flour sack fabric era here. Cindy took it on Saturday to be quilted. She got it back the following Saturday. It was GORGEOUS. Ten times prettier quilted than it had been before. We worked together on the binding (Cindy doing the harder part).

Two weeks after I had first seen the quilt top, I was able to take the finished product home and lay it on E's bed. It looks so perfect in there. I just have to stop and stare every time I see it. Cindy gave E a framed picture of Grandma Vera for her room. She said she felt strongly that Vera was very happy that her quilt was being used by this special great granddaughter. I'm so grateful, too. Thank you, Cindy, for lifting my spirits and making a beautiful quilt - and a beautiful woman - come to life for us.