Thursday, October 10, 2013

And Now For Something Completely Different!

Quilts!


That's right - Quilts! Or um, one quilt for now. Quilting is a craft I am absolutely, positively NOT taking up! No sirree, I am not. It doesn't matter if my grandmother gave me a gazillion quilt blocks to be embroidered, nor does it matter that I have some of her quilting hoops... Nope. Not doin' it. (Have I convinced you yet? Because I don't know that I am totally convinced...)

My point is - my grandmother used to make quilts, too. She was a pretty crafty lady, ha ha! One of these days  I should scan in some pics of her... But I digress.

Oh - but funny story! And true! My grandmother was called "Granny". She had intended to be "Grandma" like most normal grandmothers. But apparently my Uncle John thought it would be funny to call her Granny, and as I was little and didn't know better, I started calling her Granny. And there you go. Now my mom is Granny, too, lol. Okay, sorry for another digression... On to the point of this post!

My grandmother had five grandchildren, of which I was the first. For my high school graduation, she made me my own quilt. As in, she stitched every bit of this by hand. Let me say that again - no sewing machine touched this quilt! (Unless you would consider my grandmother's hands to be a sewing machine!). She made one for each of us, in this same pattern (called Dresden Plate). And each of us had a different unifying color. Mine is, of course, blue:



And even more amazing pics...






She "signed" it, as you can see up in the corner. Here is a better picture of that. And yeah... I'm old if you didn't know, because the year is the year I graduated high school.



And a picture of the back. These aren't good pictures because you can't really see the actual stitches. And the lighting is horrible. I'm going to have to take some better pictures sometime.



The thing is, this woman was one of the major influences on a lot of my life. I've always known that, but it's become even clearer to me these days. 

As I said, I'm hoping to get pictures of all five of the quilts. I've sent emails and stuff. But just in case you needed some inspiration, maybe this will do it. If not, just revel in the awesomeness, and marvel at the sheer number of hours put in to this one quilt. People just don't do that stuff anymore.

Including me. I am *not* going to start quilting! I mean it!

:)




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