Kaleidoscope of Generations Quilt

Feb 11

A month or two ago, my amazing Mother gave me a bag of scrap fabrics that had pieces in it from four generations of women in my family. She had used these scraps to make a quilt of her own and was now giving me what was left. Can you say JACKPOT?!?! How lucky am I that my family has held on to these precious pieces of fabric for so many years! I added some scraps of my own to make this a FIVE GENERATION scrap quilt :) It only took me a day or two to decide that I wanted to use a kaleidoscope pattern to bring these scrap fabrics to life.

As I pulled the scraps out of the bag and started pressing and cutting, I realized that the love for polka dots and stripes runs deep in my blood. We all love them!

Another thing that happened as I was pressing the fabrics, my sewing studio started to smell like my Great Grandmother's house. And then the glorious memories of spending time there in the summer with my brothers came rushing back. From feeding the ducks at the reservoir, going down the curly-q slide at the park, meeting her friends for lunch and then watching her beloved Reggie Miller and the Indiana Pacers at night. I sure do miss her and this quilt will be a wonderful reminder of times I've spent with the ladies of my family.

It's fun to look at the scraps and figure out which generation they came from. There are a lot of orange/brown combo prints that I know came from my Grandma. My Mom had a funky red, white and blue print that she made into a jumper. I'm certain she was very stylish in the 70's :) I was also able to recognize fabric from an apron, the corduroy used on so many things and my Great Grandmother's curtains in the mix.

Some of the scraps are timeless and difficult to tell what year they are from. For example, my favorite might be that green and white print in the photo below. It seems so modern to me, yet it is very old. And do stripes or polka dots every go out of style?

Unfortunately I didn't have enough scraps to make a very large quilt, so I decided to make a wall-hanging instead. The quilt top finishes at 25" x 40".