Mom and I make one last quilt together

I was a senior in high school in the early 1970's. My home ec teacher assigned us a 9-week project; and while I don't remember the details of the assignment, I do remember one of my friends came up with idea to make a quilt. I loved to sew and embroider and the idea of making a quilt was right up my alley, too.

My parents were in favor of this project, but they did not want to spend the money on new fabric. Mom was a beautiful seamstress, and she had sewn clothes for herself, my sister, and me for years. All the leftover scraps were neatly bundled and stored in a huge box in the attic. I was less than enthusiastic about using those scraps especially when my friends had plans to make quilts from traditional patchwork patterns. But as Mom and I went through that box of scraps and sorted the cotton/poly fabrics from the knits, wools, and corduroys, I saw a lot of fabrics I remembered from favorite grade school clothes; and so my charm quilt was started.

At that time, Mom was not a quilter. When America was celebrating the bicentennial in 1976, a lot of women began quilting; and Mom joined in soon after that. Her quilts like everything else she did were beautiful. She had great taste in color and design; I was so proud of her.

When she and Dad moved to assisted living in 2000, I brought all her quilt supplies and fabrics to my house. I sewed six scrap quilts for each of their grandchildren as well as one for myself. If you've read my blog for any length of time, you know that my mom has Alzheimer's and now is considered in the final stage.

Lately I noticed that my baskets of scraps were getting a little too full, so I decided it was time to weed things out and start another quilt. This time I decided to combine the last of Mom's scraps with mine to make one more quilt. My pattern is this basket from Blackbird's blog . I figure I'll need about 300 blocks to make a quilt for my bed. I told my cousin Audrey to check with me when I'm on Block #175. I'll probably be sick of this project! But I know this is something Mom and I would have done together, and that should be enough inspiration to keep going. I'll keep you posted.