My first quilt was called a “puff pocket” quilt. One made these little 3×3″ pillows (each stuffed with 1/2 of a leg of panty hose) then the “pillows” were sewn by hand together into blocks, then the blocks sewn together. It was pretty but surprizingly heavy. Having been sewing since I was very young I had plenty of scraps and I had every elderly lady at church saving me their old hose. Delighted I was carrying home a bag of the “stuffing” after church every other Sunday. I was very glad I only made a twin size…I don’t think I could have lifted anything bigger.  Then when Ken and I got married, his grandma Clara made us a green/cream daisy pattern quilt. She broke her arm a few weeks before the wedding and worried she would not finish it in time. But she healed quickly and it became one of the most memorable gifts we have ever recieved. That quilt is long gone, having been used on many a bed, and thorougly worn out.
I later began a yellow and white quilt in 1984 for my queen sized bed…and finished it just after we moved to Florida. Feeling accomplished, I made my first visit to what was then Phelps Fabrics (billed as the largest fabric store in the south) and purchased the fabric to make a “Granny’s Fan” for Erin. All in shades of pink, it was done as a block at a time. When you got each block quilted, then you joined them all together. Well life got busy and Gigi helped out quilting a good many of those blocks. Erin still has this quilt, all though it is very worn and faded.
For many years I promised myself I would go to the annual quilt show at the convention center. Last Sept. I finally made it…..took me nearly 20 years to get there and boy was I ever amazed at what an art form had developed in quilting over the past years. It is beyond description as to what some ladies have so creatively and artistically done with fabric, various textile components, and their imaginations. But I digress…
Eleven months ago, I set out to make 4 of my grandkids quilts for their beds. The 3 boys had built in bunks and to keep somekind of theme colorwise, Wheaton and Rowan got cowboy themed quilts in shades of old red, blue, pea green, and browns/golds. Andrew, whose bunk was in the same room got a 9 patch design in basically the same colors except the green. We had a great time picking out the fabric as Tia was with me at the time and we went to a really great quilt shop in Knoxville, and a couple of smaller ones in Oak Ridge. I found a really pretty combination for Celia in pinks, green and black.  So I set out to make them doing the cowboy quilts first. I wasn’t able to complete them before the “fab 4″ came to live with us, but by the new year I had finished the quilts for all 3 boys and had all the pieces cut for Celia’s. Early this spring, Papa built the “fab 4″ their own bunk house bedroom and the quilts were put on the beds….all except Celia’s. I just couldn’t seem to find a block of time to work on hers…..and she has been a real good sport in not complaining. Well finally in July, I was able to get hers started, and yesterday with some help from her, I finished it.
Having the kids here for these past 10 months has been anything and everything but easy. We have been challenged as never before and I so often fall into bed at night thinking of how I should have done this or that instead of what I did with them. This grandma is not very much fun, is way to serious most of the time, likes things probably unrealistically neat and clean, and fails to see how “silly” can be a positive thing. But I am good at taking care of their needs most of the time…..clean clothes, meals, mending monkeys, donkeys, and doll clothes. So the quilts became a way for me to do something for them, that was more lasting, more tangible, something perhaps they could hold onto for a long time. And as I worked on them, I prayed for them and thought about how I wished for happiness to come into their lives once again.
They are little now and don’t think on serious things much. But when they are older and settled again, I hope they will snuggle up in their quilts and feel how much I love them even when I couldn’t show them perhaps as I should have. The quilts are not show quality, but each piece was cut and placed with love, not so unlike the piecing together of a family. Different, special in his or her own way, unique all working together to be a “blanket” of love for each other….perhaps to hide under, to stay warm in, to rest upon. And isn’t that what God does for us.
Celia’s Garden Quilt
Rootin Tootin Cowboys for Wheaton
North Woods News for Andrew





















