When I was young, my Grandmother (we called her Me-ma) showed me the most beautiful quilt I had ever seen in the whole world. It was an astonishing collection of hexagon pieces sewn together creating blocks that looked like a whole garden patch of flowers. At the time I did not know the name of the design, only that I had to have a quilt like that and how much work it would take to make it.
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| Favorites from my quilt blocks |
When Me-ma was busy making quilts they did not cut the little pieces with rotary cutters or sew them together by machine and they certainly did not quilt with a long arm machine. It was all done by hand. The little hexagon pieces were cut out one at a time, and hand pieced. When I was twenty-something I started using my scraps to create hexagon pieces to make my own Grandmother's Flower Garden quilt. I could not remember if Me-ma's quilt had any repeated flowers in it but I decided that mine would not. It was about that time I realized the reason for the name was that no mater when you started a quilt like that, you would be old enough to be a grandmother by the time you finished it.
I made several blocks for my quilt, the block stack grew over the years, but I still did not have enough blocks to make a quilt yet. By that time we had a king size bed, which would need even more flowers. One day, when I was in my 30s I visited my Grandmother and we looked at her quilts again. This time when I looked at her Grandmother's Flower Garden quilt I realized that she had made her flowers out of about two inch or larger hexagons. My hexagons were considerably smaller. I realized then that I would need even more flowers. I might be more like a great grandmother before I ever finish this quilt.
Years have passed and I have not done anything with the blocks. I think I will start putting them together soon. I have decided the quilt will be as big as the quilt is, whatever that turns out to be. I am not going to let it cause stress if it is too small. Because it has been completely hand stitched, I will hand quilt it. It will probably be the only quilt I ever make completely by hand. My kids are in college now, if I am lucky, maybe I will finish this quilt before I am a grandmother.
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| Prints to match with a solid and sew and pattern template |
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| One flower in progress with completed blocks and pieces |
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| Finished blocks |
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