Women's Voices

 This quilt is a collaboration with a member of my Dunnett reading group.  My friend Stacey pieced the top, put the batting in and pined it to the top and then sent it to me to quilt.  It took me seven years!

I have just got started good when one of my son's was diagnosed with lung cancer.  Because he was only in his 40's and very fit before he got sick he and his Oncologist decided to go for broke.  The chemo that was used was very powerful and for quite a while we were all sure we were going to lose him.

Because I quilt with a hoop I bundled up the quilt and took it with me to work on when I sat with him in the hospital.  A miracle occurred and my son recovered to the point that his PET scans have been clear for the last six years

and he has his life back.  But somehow the quilt became soaked with unhappy associations and long after my son was better I couldn't bring myself to work on it.

Finally in January of this year the quilt started nagging me and reminding me that a) I had made a commitment and b) I was 76 years old and if I didn't get busy it would have to go back to Stacey unfinished.  Even if I was dead it would still be embarrassing.

I am attaching pictures of what a lovely quilt it turned out to be when finished and also my unconventional quilting methods.

I have been gloating over it for a little while but I really need to box it up and send it back to Stacey.

I own a lot of quilts so I don't have any particular need for this one.  For me it's all about the journey, not the destination.  It will make me happy to know that Stacey has something to remember me by when I am dead and gone.

Grandmother's Flower Garden

Shaun and I are making this quilt using the English Paper Piecing method.  It's so easy and very portable.  I can put everything I need to make one flower (cut out of course) put it in a baggie and stuff it in my handbag.  It's a nice fiddly piece of handwork that I can pass time with in the doctor's office or any other time I have to wait.  Shaun carries some to work and works on her lunch break.  It's an alternate to reading.  I hate to carry hard copy books in my handbag so if I don't have a paperback going at the time and little quilt piecing works just as well.

I've been told by Don that it's going to be a real trippy quilt.  I didn't know kids used that word anymore but he's right, it is a little trippy.  I like colors. :)

Grandmother's Flower Garden finished