Family Album Quilt

In Tribute to Mom

My mother was a prolific needleworker. During her lifetime, she hand quilted hundreds of quilts for family, friends, on commission and for charity. For relaxation, she would spend her free evenings stitching on embroidery projects. Consquently, she has left behind a treasure trove of fine hand work, much of which is still being used by her children and grandchildren. Unfortunately, much of her beautifully stitiched work stays neatly folded in the linen closets of each of her five children.

In tribute to the legacy left by my mother, and for the love of needlework she instilled in my daughter Leah and me, we decided to honour her memory by creating a Family Album quilt using traditionally hand pieced blocks to frame some of her embroidered pieces.

The focus of the quilt centres around the 3 of the large hand embroidered blocks done by my mom. Complementing the embroidery are 6 hand pieced blocks, representing each of the 5 siblings in my family, with the top centre block representing our childhood family home.

Images of old family photos, letters, recipes, etc. have been transferred onto some of the background fabric. To frame the quilt we added 3 smaller embroidered pieces in each of the corners.

The quilt is currently in Winnipeg (my hometown and where most of the family still lives) in the care of my older sister. Every time family comes to visit her, the quilt will be a reminder of the love our parents instilled in each of us and that still keeps us close.

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