I had been visiting Quiltville with Bonnie Hunter. I went down her list of patterns and chose "Simply Stripy". Dog-dead easy. You will never find an easier pattern if you tried, and I figured this would get rid of a lot of scraps, and at the same time be fast to make.
Well as is said 'the best laid plans of mice and men'.... I made the top in an afternoon and then having no "design wall" I threw it on the floor and HATED it!
I put it away for awhile and would periodically throw it on the floor again to see if it was redeemable. One night or I should say morning at around 3a.m., (insomnia) there it was on the floor with the cat laying on it when inspiration struck.
I started counting all the solid colored pieces, then I counted all of the people in our immediate family ( had to do this several times, kept forgetting one or two) and I came up with this .......
Genealogy Quilt
You can't see the names, but they were all embroidered "Tonya" style with white and red cotton. On the small solid pieces that I couldn't put a name on I put hearts. I tried several borders but since I didn't have any fabric left over from the body of the quilt, I simply sewed 2 two inch borders.
One is black print with flowers, and the other is a yellow whimsical fabric that I picked up. It said "A Passion 4 Patchwork" . It was so cute with small spools of thread between the phrase. It was perfect for this particular quilt.
On the back of the quilt I used a black fabric marker and made up the genealogy chart.
What started out to be an ugly quilt, an "I don't want to work on this anymore quilt", an unwanted quilt in other words, has turned out to be probably a family heirloom, and all the fancy beautiful quilts I've made will come and go, and that will be the end of them, but I see this one being passed down and added to.
I have 11 grandchildren and they are all asking for one also. I smiled and said perhaps as a wedding gift. Only next time I will add a lot more solid fabric, so there will be lots of places to put my great grandchildren names on (*LOL*) This one was given to my son, who came to me last year with his quilt I made him when he was about 12, and asked if I could make a new back for it. Since it was over 30 years old I suggested that maybe it was time I made him a new quilt . He hugged that quilt and with a gleam in his eye he said "Mine!" We all laughed at 'Linus' and mom put a new back on his old quilt. When it was time to give this quilt away there was no one else in the family that came to mind other than Richard. Although it didn't start out as a quilt for him , the gods had other ideas.
Until next time
~~Fran...:c)
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