I wasn't blogging back in May of 2005 so some of you may not know the story of the gift that daughter J gave me on Mother's Day. (I write like I have hundreds of fans!)
The story starts back in 1961 when Ken went back to Chicago to finish his degree. We were engaged at the time and I bought myself a kit to make a quilt for my hope chest. We were planning on having Early American furniture for our home when we got married so I chose a pretty cross-stitched rose patterned quilt top. I started in on what was to be a time-consuming job but I did get it nearly half-way done by the time S was born. . . nearly three years later. I think at that time I folded it up, put it in a box, and tucked it in the top shelf of my closet.
1999 came around and we had sold our home and had a huge garage sale to get rid of our "stuff" making ready for our new adventure of becoming fulltime RVers and living the good life. At the garage sale I told daughter J and her best friend L (they were in charge of the sale) to just sell the partially-completed quilt - that I'd rather have someone else finish it and enjoy it - that I would never be able to finish it. L exclaimed "No way!, I'll finish it . . . there's no way I can let a stranger have this!"
Well, nearly six years later, after I have come to love quilting, I thought of that quilt and thought that, if L hadn't done anything with it, I would take it back and finish it at this time. I asked J to ask L for it the next time she talked with her. A couple of months later I asked her again and she said that L couldn't seem to find it (she had moved a couple of times in the meantime) but she knew she'd find it. Little did I know that J had brought the quilt back to her house nearly two years ago and had been working on it and even 10-year-old K worked on it too! They wanted to finish it for me and give it back all finished! Bless their sweet hearts! After I nagged at her a bit she decided, after talking with her sister, to just give it back to me as is and I could finish it myself! Was I ever surprised when I opened this quilt which I thought I'd never see again, last Mother's Day.
Here it is today, cross-stitching all finished, ready to be quilted. I have located a lady back in Tennessee who works with a community of Amish quilters and she is going to have it hand-quilted for me. I am so excited. This will be a three-generation quilt and will be treasured for many years to come! Thank you L, J, and K! I couldn't have done this without you.
5 comments:
Oh, Mom! How great to see it. When J told me about it and asked my advice, I had know idea what that thing looked like. It will be beautiful! Isn't it soo sweet that J (and K) wanted to finish it for you!! But you had to keep on bugging her :> I'm psyched for you.
Okay, okay. I really do know how to spell -- even though I spelled "no" as k-n-o-w above...
Yes it was very sweet . . . but I'm glad it worked out this way because it truly was a whole bunch of work and I'm not sure if we'd see it in the near future if they took the whole thing on themselves (quilting, especially). Tee Hee :> I'm trying to remember if you ever did see it. I think maybe when you were three I might have had it out for the last time. I remember doing it a bit while working at the bank in Highland Park then.
J, it is very beautiful, and so valuable with the three generation thing. It seems that we should be thanking L as she is the one who rescued it from the garage sale. For what size bed is it?? I love the roses, it looks so old fashioned and sweet.Almost called you to tell you I signed up for a beginner's quilting class, but will put it on hold till after we
are resettled. The teacher said I had to take a rotary cutting class before I took this class.
Thank you greatauntip for pointing out that I had neglected to say "thank you" to L. . . You bet, if it hadn't been for her this quilt would be on somebody else's bed. It is sized for a double bed - which we finally have in our Woodland Park.
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