I don't have my photos properly divided into categories, but I've been linking up my progress on this quilt for so long that it seemed wrong not to link up the finished piece. You'll just have to forgive me this time.*
My grandmother had several of these quilt tops tucked away in a trunk in her room for as long as I can remember. She had hand pieced them with an array of fabric scraps--it looks to be mostly old clothing and maybe, flour sacks? She never told me the story of them--when she made them, why they were never finished--and I never thought to ask until it was too late. Isn't that the way it always goes. You think there will be plenty of time later, and then your time is up.
It took a long time to finish hand-quilting it since it's a queen sized quilt and I am a slow quilter but I didn't mind. It's relaxing to have a project you can pull out and work on a bit in the evenings without making a huge mess--although it did take up a fair bit of space and I think Chris was glad to not be constantly shifting it around the living room anymore.
My goal had originally been to finish it by Thanksgiving so that I would be able to work on a baby quilt once we found out what we were having. Obviously that timetable changed when it turned out that little Frances wouldn't be needing a quilt after all. When I called Chris to let him know we had lost her and that he needed to meet me at the hospital for my induction the one thing I asked him to bring was the quilt. I knew it would be a comfort and that I needed something to do with my hands while I labored.
When you're experiencing a typical labor you can distract yourself with something like binge watching Gilmore Girls while you eat as much as you can before you head to the hospital where you know they won't give you so much as a popsicle, not that you'd have time to eat one once you arrived anyway. But when you're laboring for hours and hours to bring a child into the world who you know you've already lost you need a different sort of distraction. One that you can pore all your grief and prayers and tears into. That's what this quilt became for me, at the hospital and then at home as well. I was almost sorry to finish it.
I suppose Frances got her quilt after all.
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*I guess this post could still be considered pretty and real, but I really veered off the happy and funny once I started writing didn't I? I'm going to link up to Like Mother, Like Daughter anyway because I do want to share the finished quilt, and the quilt does make me happy, if not actually upbeat.
