One of my “past lives” was as an avid quilter. Family members seemed to like passing on scraps of fabric, miscellaneous quilt squares, and even unquilted patchwork.
The ingredients for this one came from my mother-in-law’s attic.
Her mother, Teresa (Runkle) Walker, had cut out and even basted all the tulip petals, the stems and the leaves. She had appliqued the design on over half the squares, which she’d collected in a stack.
After figuring out how many squares would be needed for a decent-sized quilt, I carefully washed everything and finished appliqueing sprigs of tulips. By then, I’d decided to give it to Guy’s sister Lois, who loves the color blue, so I found a dusty blue fabric for the sashing.
The top was set together in 1991. I hand-quilted it (my favorite part), using a quilting frame, in 1992. That June, we took the quilt to California with us to visit Lois and Dave. Lois uses the quilt on their guest bed in Concord, California.
Lois does tons of sewing on the machine but I guess she hadn’t realized that Grandma Walker and I had done ours all by hand. One of their guests gushed over her hand-made quilt.
The only thing better than an heirloom is one with a story!