A Legacy of Love

In a family the size of ours there is almost always a new baby coming along and we are spread out over a pretty large space sometimes so the baby wont always be able to meet his or her relatives right away or even ever sometimes!  So we have a family tradition among some of our people that helps the new arrival to have a connection to the family and to their ancestry.  We make family quilts.

We start with squares of white or off white material and use iron ons or we trace pictures out of coloring books to get the picture on the fabric.  We have done all sorts of themes - animals, equipment, flowers, mickey mouse, Pooh, even race cars or Mater!

We send out a block to anyone who tells us they would like one.  Sometimes we have to limit it to say 20 blocks because we have had 40 people say they want to do one.  We give everyone a due date to have them back by and they go from there with embroidery.  We did have one quilt where none of the folks were  able to embroider and they did paints and wax crayons that they set with ironing.  It was also beautiful! We have also at times used pieced blocks between the embroidered ones so that more people could participate (that made a twin sized quilt instead of a baby quilt).

 The above photos show one of the quilts that have both embroidery and pieced blocks.  Everyone signs their blocks either with permanent pen or with embroidery stitching.  Sometimes, when the child doesn't get to meet the person who made and signed the block, for whatever reason, it gives a point of reference for the family to get out the pictures, show the child who that was and how they are connected to that person and let them feel the love!  It is a great way for the child to have a memory of someone they didn't get to meet!

Above left shows a single block that has had the borders sewn on already.  Above right shows the quilt blocks being staged - it took some time to figure out where each block needed to go to balance in this quilt as we had a lot of different styles of embroidery.  This quilt is for a little guy who will be from a hunting family so he gets a wild game quilt.

Above shows the quilt after the blocks have been sewn together and I am now working on putting the binding on so it can be delivered to the mom by the time the baby gets here.  There is a soft flannel on the back and it will be a warm comfort both from the flannel and from all the love that was put into it by his family!