Thursday, January 9, 2014

Preserving a Piece of History...


 A recent project I completed was to frame a small piece of a quilt made by my paternal grandmother. She hand-pieced and quilted this double wedding ring quilt as a wedding gift for my parents, more than 60 years ago now. My parents used the quilt for many years until it became threadbare and badly worn in many places. I think it was destined for the scrap pile when I claimed it some years ago with the intent of somehow salvaging part of it. It sat in a closet for years, but having just remodeled our master bedroom, it seemed like a good time to do something with the quilt.



 From the close up picture, you can see how badly worn much of the quilt was, but I found a section that was intact enough to frame. I just bought an inexpensive framed canvas art piece at the local discount store and used that as a frame to wrap and staple the quilt around. Now it is hanging on our newly painted wall.


This is a picture of me as a toddler sitting on my grandmother's knee. She has been gone from this world for over 30 years, but I have many childhood memories of time spent with her. I also have some beautiful crocheted doilies that she made. She was a homesteading immigrant to the Canadian prairies in the early 1900s. The quilt and doilies are not only keepsakes from my grandmother, but are tributes to the fact that she and many other homesteading women who lived very hard lives, still found time to create beautiful things for their homes and families.

I love that the framed piece of my grandmother's quilt hangs on our wall just feet away from the beautiful quilt our daughters created much more recently. Women, separated by 3 generations and 90 years, but sharing the gift of creativity and love of family!



2 comments:

  1. I enjoyed your post. I think it's a God-given desire to want to make our surroundings pretty and homey, and to share that with those we love!

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  2. What a meaningful piece of art! I love the idea of taking something historical and special to the family and preserving and displaying it in the home such as you've done with grandmother's quilt.

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