January began with a list of 12 UFO projects to be worked on through the year. How did I do? Of those twelve projects, six were completely finished – Hooray! Four saw good progress – to the flimsy stage. One project I abandoned but finished up something else in its place. And the last one, my African Collage which was the project for December, never made it out of the bag! -- that project is first on my list for 2012.
In my defense, however, I will say that sometimes there are more important things than quilting. My father passed away in December and time and energy went into spending time with family, holding a memorial service, and cleaning out Dad’s apartment.
As we sorted through Dad’s things I was surprised to see how many quilts there were! I had made them for Mum and Dad over the years, and somehow they all made their way to the apartment. Here are a few of them:
The gardening quilt hung right outside the apartment door to remind visitors that growing things had always been important to Mum and Dad. (The blocks were made from a series of patterns in Quiltmaker magazine.)
Dad had this stained glass quilt above a bookshelf. I borrowed the pattern from a friend who worked in glass and enlarged it for the quilt.
The loon quilt was made as a guild round robin project. The block is from a book by Margaret Rolfe, and friends in the guild added the borders. I think this one reminded my father of fishing expeditions on prairie lakes.
I made the African Violets for my mother to remind her of the plants she always kept on the kitchen windowsill when they lived on the farm. Pattern from Paper Panache.
The watercolour quilt is called My Father’s Trees. It was made for my parents’ fiftieth wedding anniversary in 1997. They spent those 50 years running a tree nursery and selling plants to beautify the surrounding community. The images represent a blue spruce, a maple, and a golden elder, three of Dad’s favourites.
Louisa, so sorry to hear about your dad. Clearing out a parent's belongings is one of the hardest things to do in life; I have been there, in Dec. too, and it was very difficult.
ReplyDeleteI love the watercolour quilt, just beautiful.
Louisa, the love you have for your parents is in each and every quilt you gave them, and they knew it. It will live forever in them. And they are beautiful. Thank you for sharing them.
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