This is my rock garden looking out window
Grandmother's Flower Garden Quilt made by me and my mom. Our Airdale dog sits in front of it.
Because yesterday we were snowed in I dug around in my plastic bins of unfinished projects and pulled out this quilt I had started quite a few years ago. 
All I have to do is finnish the edges and quilt it. As I worked on it yesterday I could hear the ferocious wind and glancing out the window the snow was piling up. It made me wonder if it was going to be like the other storm we had a while back. It brought my mind back to other memories of years ago too.
Like the time I was working on a circle of this pattern Grandmothers flower garden. My mom had come over and she asked if she could have some of that antique material I was using. I had found it at a rummage sale. She wanted to make a few circles. I was using them for a pillow, but when mom came back a week later she had a pile of circles using lots of bright colors. 
What a gramma's garden it did look like! She wanted more material to make more circles of the Grandmothers Flower Garden pattern. I did not tell mom that I was only making a pillow but jumped in and started the quilt instead. She came back with another pile of the circles so I started to join the circles with an off white material using the same octogon pattern. The more I worked on getting it together the more I loved the beautiful garden of colors my mom had done. 
Bless her precious heart because she loved bright colores and so made up lots of reds, loud blues, and yellow as you can see in the picture. When I placed the quilt on a bed at that time, it just was very striking and I thought I wanted something a little more quiet in that bedroom. So the unfinnished quilt got put away 20 years ago.
But now at my growing length of years of 67 I love the bright colors and I feel more daring. I also felt so peaceful working on the quilt yesterday. I thought of the quilts she made for me and my sisters. I grew up staying snuggely warm many a winter night here in Wisconsin tucked under that beautiful quilt. I think it was like the Texas Star because there were many points coming together. I had loved touching all the different prints in it.
Mom died ten years ago. She had moved down to Florida to live near my brother Joe and his family.
She had arthritis and the cold winters of Wisconsin were hard on her. I had missed her so..... Working on the quilt was almost like having her back with me. Touching the many circles made me think of the many times she use to come out here when she flew back on the plane for a couple weeks in the summer to stay with us. One summer she spent endless hours working on my Wedding Ring Quilt I had up on my quilt frame. I was making it for my son. That was another long project that took me ten years to finnish. I told the kids it was a good thing they didn't get divorced because it was their tenth wedding anniversery WHEN they got the quilt. My quilting is all hand pieced, so takes a lot longer.
This year I am working on machine quilting but it is more of a challenge to keep everything even. Anyone got any tips on how I can do this? I have pinned it and also tried just holding it firmly. Another snag I have run into is a table top runner using the V Block down the middle. It seems to be very thick where the 12 points come togeather. I did it by hand first and did not like it but then did it with machine and still not happy with it. Refuse to take it part again. Yikes..... 
