The 5 Year Quilts

After 5 years they are finally finished! In 2005 I decided I would make Eye Spy Quilts for my two sons. Thinking that it may take me a while I chose realistic looking animal prints.

It was great fun exploring fabric stores where ever my travels took me to look for just the rignt animal print. Funny, the non sewers in the car didn't feel the same way.

There were a few set backs along the way. I made curtains out of my main solid colour for my sons room not realizing it was the quilt fabric. So the green quilt has two slightly different solid greens. I miss calculated how many squares I needed and the two quilts are not quite the same size even thought that was my original plan. Math has never been a strength for me!

Once the tops and back were complete I very wisely had them quiltd by someone who has a quilting machine. I didn't want it to take another 5 years. The boys would be in university!

My sons like to curl up in them and if I do say myself they turned out beautifully.

My grandmother would be proud.

Vintage Fruit Basket Quilt

 Lillias Westwood, my Grandmother taught me many things. She taught me how to sew. She also taught me the importance of doing things over and over again until I get them right. She used to say " I'll just take that out for you." And I would have to do it again.

One of her passions was quilting. In her lifetime she made many quilts some of which were hand quilted in the kitchen of her cozy cottage. I was given a beautiful Fruit Basket Quilt. It is hand appliqued and hand quilted.

Imagine my surprise when I looked through a scrap book she had given me and I found cut out of a 1933 Winnipeg Free Press Prairie Farmer newspaper all of the patterns for the quilt. She cut them out before she was married in 1938 and she did not make the quilt until she had grandchildren. The patterns are marked with pencil marks from tracing and notes on what colour to use where. How cool is that!

This piece of my families history gives me hope. I will be able to get to the many quilt projects I would like to make. It inspires me that I too can make beautiful quilts to keep my family warm and to leave them something to remember me by. Thanks Grandma, I miss you.