It has been several years since one of the founding members of our quilt guild, Del Reynoldson, passed away. Her daughter is still working through her mother’s stash, sorting things, flinging things, finishing up projects, finding new homes for things. I was offered one of Del’s quilt tops for the Prayer Quilts group at the church.
I was very surprised when I saw this – it was a sampler quilt I designed many years ago as a block-of-the-month project at the local quilt shop. I remember how honoured I felt at the time to know that someone who had been quilting and teaching others to quilt for much longer than I had would decide to do my project.
I designed the blocks using Electric Quilt software, probably version 4. The blocks each month were chosen to focus on a variety of quilting techniques, strip piecing, half square triangles, curved piecing, templates, etc. The blocks were in a variety of sizes and we made various simple “fillers” so the quilt could be put together in a “custom set” – this seemed like a very daring idea at the time!
Del certainly made the quilt her own. She added more blocks and her own personal touches to several of the blocks.
This quilt top has brought back memories of a dear friend, and I know the church group will enjoy finishing it up so that it can bring joy to someone as a prayer quilt.
