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This quilt was first started in 1987 as a Christmas block exchange between my daughter (then 8 years old) and some of her girlfriends and their moms. For 3 years they made blocks and exchanged them at Christmas. I made her some, she made some, her grandmother made her one, two of my girlfriends (one who has since passed away) and my daughter's very first girl friend at age one and few more friends pieced her blocks. I remember how excited the girls were to find Micky mouse quilt fabrics and used Artex paints to sign their names! Well, the blocks remained unfinished for about 12 years and then my friend and I spent a few days piecing her daughters and my daughters blocks into quilt tops. Another 18 years pass, it was time to have the top quilted! After 30 years the quilt was finished, signed, dated, wrapped and tucked under the tree for my daughter on Christmas morning! She had no idea it was made into a quilt. Two of her other young girlfriend quilts were finished, the one, who's mother had passed away, finished piecing the quilt and had it quilted herself, and my girlfriend who secretly finished her daughters! What beautiful memory quilts for us all. |
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This is it sitting in front of my girlfriend's beautiful Christmas tree with her appliqued quilt hanging over the balcony. |
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Well, I'm still exchanging friendship blocks with my friends at Christmas, and I still treasure them. This is a group from one of my bees. Star blocks to go with our snowmen blocks we began 3 years ago. |
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A 3D pinwheel |
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My friend who hosted the party made us all quilted star candy dishes with her fancy embroidery sewing machine! Thank you Jamie |
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One friend had this cute snowflake ornament on our package, I love the saying "wish upon a snowflake". |
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They will be added to all the other snowmen blocks in another year or two. First another star block exchange next year. |
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In my other bee we had a Autumn" block exchange. The long pieced block will have a wool pumpkin appliqued in the middle. The 7 small blocks along the left and bottom side are friendship blocks made at a retreat in 1998, some of the same friends made them! (Deb Hardman do you recognize these?) They will be added with the new blocks once this bee is done with this Christmas exchange. |
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I made a few little quilted snowmen wall hangings/ pot holders for Christmas visitors. |
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A couple for my daughter. |
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Our son had us all over Christmas Eve, he put up my parents original 1960's aluminum Christmas tree with the spinning color wheel. Blue. |
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Yellow. With my cute grandsons. |
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or green! I hope you have a wonderful holiday season and I hope I can be with you more often in 2018! After the holidays are over I'm out in the dye studio seeing what color (if any) I can coax out of my red poinsettia! I'll let you know. |
2 comments:
Lovely heartwarming stories of friendship and love. What was your daughter's reaction to seeing her long ago blocks made up into a beautiful quilt?
She was very excited and happy! I had the quilt folded with the backing showing when she first unwrapped it so she had no idea because she usually knows everything I'm working on. After she figured it out it ment a lot to her.
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