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Grandmother's Flower Garden


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Usually I am my own worst critic but I finished a quilt for a customer last week that I am really happy with. It is a king size Grandmother's Flower Garden, all hand pieced. Every flower is made up of seven different fabrics, and every fabric was only used once in the quilt. There are a few repeats in the green background but not in the flowers. She worked on it on and off for five years, and she must have collected every basic fabric out there for the last 20 years. It was so much fun quilting the flowers and looking at all the different fabrics, recognizing many of them. She asked me to "make the flowers look like flowers", and I think I did :)

Grandmother's Flower Garden.jpg

Grandmother's Flower Garden Detail.jpg

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Thank you, everyone, for all your nice words! It was a lot of fun quilting this one, and although it took a while, I was almost sorry when I was done. That has never happened before for sure :D

20 hours ago, cegates said:

I love the way the CC's in the green hexagons line up to echo the petal shape. 

Carol, that was a lucky accident. I was trying to figure out a way to do continuous leaves in the green background but couldn't come up with an idea that would work for turning the corners. Then I decided it would take long enough to do all the flowers individually and went with this. I was delighted when I realized it looked like an echo around the petals.

2 hours ago, Gail O said:

That must have been a lot of starts and stops.

Gail, yes, lots of starts and stops but I managed to do every flower in one continous line, and after finishing one row of flowers, all the green hexagons around them could be done without stopping, so it wasn't too bad. I was just worried that I'd miss a few hexagons, so I checked every single one before taking the quilt of the frame... and I had missed two. Boy, was I glad I took the time to do that.

1 hour ago, tootsquilts said:

Has she seen it yet?  I would love to know her reaction.

Cathy, yes, she already picked it up, and she loved it. She will give this to her daughter for Christmas. I really hope the daughter understands the amount of work that went into this quilt.

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Beatrice;

The piecing and the quilting are absolutely gorgeous.  I hope and pray the daughter respects the fabric to an extent that she guards and cherishes the quilt for generations to come.  Thank you for sharing.

Cagey

PS: I want to see the piecers stash, as it must be a thing a beauty.  I can just hear her say; "I have a fabric that will work great with that block of yours...."

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15 hours ago, Cagey said:

PS: I want to see the piecers stash, as it must be a thing a beauty.  I can just hear her say; "I have a fabric that will work great with that block of yours...."

Lol, Cagey, I asked her about that... she said she started quilting in 1984, so has accumulated a lot of fabrics but her friends also raided their stashes, and she just needed one small piece for one hexagon each, so they all gave her some of all they fabrics they bought during those five years as well.

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1 hour ago, Marie0722 said:

Lol, Cagey, I asked her about that... she said she started quilting in 1984, so has accumulated a lot of fabrics but her friends also raided their stashes, and she just needed one small piece for one hexagon each, so they all gave her some of all they fabrics they bought during those five years as well.

Even more reason the daughter had better love and cherish this gift from her mother.  It is filled with love and memories from all of her mother's friends and their quilts.  It is a community in heart and spirit.

Cagey

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