grandma's hands

more pictures of the quilt can be found here.

my mother-in-laws 60th birthday was coming up and as a family we all wanted to give her something special. what's more special than a handmade gift????

we decided that a quilt would be best...

luckily i know a couple quilters ; )

the handprints were a family effort. everyone traced their handprints. those that lived farther away faxed in their prints. on a saturday we all got together to make the hands (my little sewing room was packed! ). everyone picked their own fabrics. all the ladies traced, i sewed and my husband cut the prints out. all together there are 23 hands.

after the hands were finished my sister-in-law Jess and i got to work on the rest of the quilt. every family has their own branch starting from the oldest (the lower left branch) to the youngest child (the top branch). T + W (as seen on the trunk) stands for Tom and Wendy. the two red love birds are also to symbolize Tom and Wendy. there are 3 apples on the bottom of the tree symbolizing the 3 soon to be born babies in the family. there is a paw print on the bottom of the tree to symbolize Kano, the family dog. the back has a strip similar to a coin quilt to add some fun to the back. and a memory quilt just wouldn't be the same without a hand written tag to commemorate her birthday. the quilt was quilted by our cousin Sylvie. she did an amazing job and we had it back SO quick! you can see more of Sylvie's work here.

it was fun to be able to design this quilt and work on it with my sister-in-law Jess. it definitely was a labour of love. i hope that Wendy knows how much she is loved by her children, her in-laws and her grandchildren. it couldn't have gone to a more deserving person.

xo

sandra