The quilt with the interesting history

 This one isn't *totally* done, but done enough to be used, so I'm running with it, and will post again when it's completely done.

Many many years ago, probably in the 70s, my maternal grandmother, who as far as I know was never really into sewing, started piecing this Lone Star quilt top. Not an easy project to tackle! But, so I was told, she completed the pieced top and then had had enough, so it didn't get finished.

Eventually, my mom met my dad and they were married, and his mom was a quilter. So somehow, my maternal grandmother passed the quilt off to my paternal grandmother, who dutifully took on the job of quilting. She layered it and added the backing, then basted it all by hand, and began the slow work of hand quilting. 

Eventually, her hands and eyes got beyond the point where hand quilting was an option, and by then, I was a young teenager who was into sewing and quilting and fabrics, so *I* inherited it. Of course, by the early 90s, the colors that Grandma had chosen in the 70s were atrocious. I thought the quilt was so ugly, BUT also really loved the Lone Star pattern (one that to this day I have not yet attempted, finding that I prefer right angles!) and the sentimental quality of a quilt that both of my grandmothers had worked on - that can't be the sort of thing that happens every day!

Fast forward over 20 years, and the thing is still sitting in my closet in an old cushion cover. For some reason, it came to my mind this past summer (partly, I think, because the colors in it so beautifully match my daughter's bedroom!), so I dug it out and determined to finish it. It's funny how tastes can change. I no longer at all think that it's ugly, and am so glad I didn't get rid of it years ago! I also decided that I'm not as much of a purist as I used to be, so did not feel the need to finish the quilting by hand, but rather decided to play up the multi-personal, multi-generational aspect of the quilt, and finished it up with a combination of standard machine quilting and some free-motion quilting. Six months later, it's ready! 

I didn't really plan out the whole thing, but rather did each little remaining chunk piece by piece. On the two narrower borders, I tried a meandering free-motion feather pattern that I wanted to try, and that I also thought was a nice nod to the more formal feather that Grandma F. had hand quilted in the central yellow squares.

I then started with a "ribbon candy" pattern in the pale green border, and decided mid-way through to switch to script and capture the history of the quilt in writing. "This quilt has an interesting history...it was pieced by Grandma Kelbe...hand quilted by Dottie...and finished by me for my daughter, Leah."

Then, I told Leah that she could pick what I wrote on the two wider yellow borders. She picked "A Man said to the Universe" by Stephen Crane (one they came across in their literature/history class at school, and it fits in the space perfectly), but hasn't decided what she wants on the other border. Once she decides, I can put it on there. In the meantime, it's going to live in her room, and not on my in-process quilt rack!