raptureready

Two of my three sisters and I split mom's stash when she and daddy died. (The third sister gave her machine away so that her dh wouldn't expect her to sew.) I've found in my portion of the stash some of the cereal box templates that mom made and wrote on. Although I'll never use them I showed them to DD (11 yrs old) and pointed out that her grandma had written on them and didn't she have beautiful handwriting. I could tell by the reverence with which she handled them that they'll be taken care of even after I'm gone.

kristen0112

It does seem sad that the family doesn't want these things mainly the diaries. But what you and I see as treasures and memories may not be how they remember their loved one. My mother, and grandmother have both passed away I had A LOT of stuff! Initially I kept a lot of it because of grief and how could I throw or give their belongings away? I eventually came to realize that I wasn't using their stuff. In fact it was cluttering up my space and collecting dust. The things I had kept were not my loved ones and holding onto them didn't really ease the pain of loss.
One Christmas I gave my grandma one of those Christmas houses that light up. She was so pleased with that gift and she HAD EVERYTHING so shopping for her made it hard. So every year after that I bought her a new piece for her collection. She adored it, she had a bakery, a church, a train station, the list goes on there were about 10 of them. She left a note for me attached to one of the boxes expressing how much she loved them and thought of me. This week I took them to Teen Challenge thrift store. Was it sad maybe to someone else. But to me the note which I had taken off meant more than the actually item. And the memories of her opening them on Christmas and seeing how delighted her face was at seeing it. The note really is the reminder to me.
My long winded story is coming to a point. It may be that because this woman was so proficient and good at quilting that members of her family treasure something else closer to them than the books or diaries. The quilt she made them out of their old Christmas pajamas, or a wedding quilt. It may also be another entire aspect of her life that didn't involve quilting at all that they treasure.
As for those diaries if your state has a society that tracks quilts and their makers they may be interested in them. Those are important, and truly that is what I would have kept if I was a non-quilting family member.

BRenea

Sad that the family doesn't want her things that were obviously so cherished. I think if something happened to me my DH might take up quilting! He's an engineer so he would probably be great at it! :D

RevPam

My quilting friends have promised to quickly claim my stash and patterns if anything happens to me. (Hubby takes over the machine to do his own mending and is much better at picking colors than I.)

Bluphrog

My son and daughter will argue over who gets the Bernina 240 and 440, because they both sew (though neither of them has taken up quilting yet). I know my DD wants the treadle. And I'll make sure each of the grandkids gets one of my Featherweights.

My DH knows which quilting buddies to contact if I go too quick to split it up myself. Otherwise, I'll get to play Mrs. Santa and gift my friends with lots of stuff.

littlehud

Mine will go to my DGD. She is learning to sew with me and loves fabric as much as I do. Although my youngest daughter went with me to the fabric store and bought some fabrics for a quilt. When I asked what she wanted me to make she asked if I would help her make a quilt. I may have a new convert.