HomeMade Stitches

Over thirty years ago my mother gave me the last quilt top my grandmother ever made. Not too long after piecing it she had a stroke and came to live with us. When her home in small town Pawnee, Illinois, got cleaned out, Mom found the quilt top, kept it, and passed it on to me when I was newly married.

I bought a quilt frame, purchased batting, pinned the top to a backing, and began the project. It was slow going. I guess thirty years is very very slow! A baby came along, the quilt frame came down, and a crib took it's place. Time went by, and the quilt stayed folded neatly in the linen closet. Until November 2007.

That is when, through MaryJane'sFarm website, I found a wonderful business called HomeMade Stitches. A group of Mennonite and Amish women in Minnesota and Wisconsin finish quilts and also make custom quilts as a business - and everything is done by hand. Out of the linen closet came grandma's quilt, still pinned and only slightly sewn together. Back to the mid-west it travelled and a few short months later, it is now a finished work of art. To me anyway.

This quilt was pieced together with what was once my grandmother's housedresses. When they wore out, she used them for quilting. I know that because the first time I saw it, I immediately could see her in those dresses which were usually covered with an apron...and I think there are apron pieces in there too.

When the box came home to me in the mail two days ago, my granddaughter was with me. We opened it together and drew out this quilt, and I felt the threads of time literally piecing our lives together - grandmother to grandmother, I stood with the woman who made that last quilt top.