Blogger Quilt Festival

I decided to cheat. I can't pick just one.

I did pick a theme, though: Grandmother Quilts. The first quilt was what got me quilting in the first place. Every fabric (minus the borders) was my great-grandmother's. When we found the pieces going while through some of her things, I decided I would learn how to quilt to finish what she started and give it to Nanna for her 80th birthday. Look where it got me! My Nanna, pictured here, did not inherit her mom's love of quilting, but she's a mighty seamstress and made all her daughter's dresses. And hemmed a lot of mine! There's a lot of sentiment packed in this one. It's my second quilt, my first hand-quilted, my first venture into color and pattern, and I learned a lot making it.

Now, for my NaNa's quilt. This one is the most technically challenging I've done, and it's pretty big. It's the second 80th birthday quilt and I made it during my first year of dental school - quite a feat! It represents rare moments of insanity where I would set aside my studies to do something I really enjoyed - and catch up on the first few seasons of LOST I'd missed out on : ) It was hard, and stressful, and pushed me, so I definitely had to kick it up a notch. NaNa taught me how to sew. She would give me cross-stitch and embroidery samplers and teach me how to do the stitches when I'd spend the night at her house. (I still have them...unfinished! Need to work on that...20 years later...) She, herself, hooks wool rugs, and I fully intend to get a post up soon and show off her amazing work. This quilt is hand-quilted, too, and the label (on the back) is hand-embroidered.

So I guess this is kind of a hats off to my sewing heritage. My quilting continues to evolve into my own style as most of my recent quilts are quite a bit different than these (and actually made better), but there's much more going into these than most of the others.