|
Each of the seven children made a square, one of my sister-in-law's cross-stitched the center square, and I did a family
photo collage for the ninth square. On the back, I appliqued a handprint from each child, spouse and grandchild (see
below).
It was remarkable how creative and different all the squares turned out to be (despite a great deal of whining!!!).
People used a variety of techniques and items - photo transfer, applique, buttons, ribbons, fabric puff paint, cross-stitch,
patches, jewelry - to convey the theme, which was "what I got from my parents".
I appliqued handprints on the back of the quilt, using a different color scheme for each sibling and their family.
I wrote their names, birthdate and place of birth on each hand.
It was especially tricky to get a handprint from my in-laws without giving away the secret - I got it by playing
a game with my nephews about "whose hand is bigger?" and tracing various family members' hands, including my in-laws.
They never suspected...
This quilt is double sided, mainly because I couldn't decide which I wanted to do and liked both ideas equally, so ended
up doing both. When it came time to quilt it, I realized that I had a problem - if I quilted around the squares on the
front, the lines would go through the hands on the back, and vice versa. I took the problem to my quilt guild, Faithful
Circle Quilters, who gave me many creative ideas. The one I ended up using was to quilt the hands to a muslim backing,
and then stitch the muslim to the seam allowances between the squares. So - the hands have hearts and random swirls
quilted between them, and the front has no visible quilting. The quilt can be hung to show either side.
|
