Originally Posted by yourstrulyquilts

The true story of two quilters, part one.
My mom was a quilter and being the only child (I lost my brother when he was 17, and me 19) she gave me quilts. These were utility quilts made with polyester from clothing. In those years she didn't buy fabric like we do now. She went to rummage sales, and later, garage sales, and found used polyester clothes, which she washed and tore apart at the seams. She used simple patterns, and with puffy batting, tied them all. As my children were born and growing up, they all had quilts from Granny. Different stages in their lives got them a new quilt. For my son, who grew to be 6'5" at 16 years old, she made a very long one. My daughters got pretty pink and orange, blue and pink, with greens thrown in. As time passed and quilting changed~ think rotary cutter~ so did Mom's quilting. She found a pattern called Sunshine and Shadow, and we all got one of those, in cotton fabrics that she bought at Joanne. They were beautiful! She had great color sense. Her bindings were always zig-zagged on and there was little to no batting out that far, so it was usually just a strip of fabric folded in half and sewn on to the edge to keep it all together.
During all this time I never quilted. I was busy being a single mom with 3 or four kids, depending on who was living where at any given time. I worked full time and when the kids were little made all their clothes, plus my own. I would sew late at night and early in the morning. I thought quilting was a waste of time. Mostly because I didn't have any left over at day's end!
But I did do craft things. I taught myself to crochet at about 9 years old~my grand mother had crocheted and so I wanted to do what Grandma did~ and was producing doilies for my "hope(less) chest", as by brother called it. As I got older and babysat for people and had my own spending money, I bought yarn and made afgans. I did embroidery work on towels and pillow cases.
I crocheted until the 1980's and in 1986 I saw a pattern in a magazine that caught my eye. It was beautiful. It was a Grandmother's Fan in a queen size, green and lilac, my favorite colors! I immediately went shopping for fabric, armed with the requirements for yardage. The fans were assorted pinks, greens and lilacs. I bought waaaay more than necessary to make them. I also bought the wrong kind of fabric. I got all silky prints. No rotary cutter, none of the neat thing I have today. But by May I was finishing the quilt with hand quilting. It was done! It was lovely! (Since then I have learned a thing or two about hand quilting. My stitches then were three per inch! Not quite right, but it's still together.) I had hand stitched each fan spoke with embroidery and I loved it. I used it for years, and every morning the bedspread would be on the floor because of the quilt being silky.
But after making that one quilt, I went back to my crochet and other crafts that I had picked up over the years. And I went back to work full time, as a florist at a major grocery store. So time was once again limited.
My mom, however, kept on quilting. Over the years she has made 451 quilts. In these later years, she's had her quilts quilted by a long arm quilter. She has macular degeneration and is now not able to sew any more. Just last month I went to her house and took away all of her quilting stuff. She had boxes of fabric and she wanted me to take it to the Guild to make quilts for kids, because that's where so many of hers had gone, was to children. She is now legally blind and I'm sure she will expire before long because of not being able to quilt. She bemoans the fact to me every day, and she's going downhill. I will miss her when she is gone.

I will tell more later, about my own quilting experience.
Diana