About 6 years ago my grandmother was meeting in a Hancock Fabric classroom for a small quilt guild of 4. I had been looking for a quilting community, but in the small town I was living everyone met during a week day, ya know the hours when I work. So she sent me this design, The Gravity Quilt by Jaybird Quilts, letting me know her group was going to be making it next. She thought I would love this quilt and I did!
So I drove from TN to SC and went to the kickoff meeting with her, and we set out to collect ONE HUNDRED AND FOURTEEN Kona cotton colors. At the time it felt like a journey, I was new to online fabric shopping. Now I might consider myself quite the expert in that…
The first photo of this block I could find in my records was Sep 2015!!
We started with blues and worked our way up! I love the blues, teals, and purples. My grandma really loved the yellows, greens, and corals!
We had many weekend “cutting” parties when I would drive home to South Carolina. We had a little system. We both ironed and starched, then I would cut them out using the super sidekick and hex-n-more rulers. IF YOU ARE MAKING THIS QUILT GET THE RULERS! Grandma would label and bag the blocks in reused zip top bags.
Check out FatQuarterShop for those handy rulers (affiliate link). I think she is using them again for the Tula Pink Nebula Quilt this year!
Grandma used this great green tape to label, even some of my Kona stash has her label and hand writing to this day!
Fast forward to 2017- before we moved to Texas. My grandmother had completed her top (it would take me 2 more years…) and brought the top to me to take to find a longarm quilter. So she came up for her last visit before we left to Texas. I miss being in close driving distance to them, I loved our weekend visits in the mountains.
Shortly after joining the Houston Modern Quilt guild I saw many beautifully quilted pieces by Pam Biswas. We talked about what we wanted and decided to give it a go! So I gave her my grandmothers quilt, and then mine. Wanna see grandma get her quilt? I have a video thanks to Gloria (my twin sister).
She loved it so much! When I picked this quilt up from Pam, I dropped my quilt top and backing off. We talked about the design I wanted, and she introduced me to Christina Cameli. Her book Step-by-Step Texture was set to hit stores and Pam wanted to try some of the designs on my quilt. I was more than happy to let her!
When I got my quilt back from Pam, I was busy and burnt out from a Christmas season of sewing. It sat in my room awaiting it’s binding. I definitely had the silver Kona for the binding somewhere. Finally in 2020, a year of many things, but also a year of Kona shortage I had to order the silver color I needed. It took me 2 months to find the Kona in stock to purchase for the binding. I made the binding and attached it right away.
Then again it sat, waiting for some motivation to finish..Finally I put my mind to getting this quilt done (aiming for the end of 2020 because I wrote 2020 on the label!!!!) but it didn’t happen until 2021.
Now it is done, it’s beautiful and I’m thankful to have the quilt, the memories, and this short(ish) blog post to think back on the years of love my Grandmother put into teaching me to quilt.
Thanks to my photo assistants Gloria and Josh!
I’m so happy to have this special quilt and that I shared the experience with my grandma. She taught me to quilt and I always love getting to sew something with her. I think we should start another together/apart project!
Thanks for all the love on this quilt, it is truly special to me. I’m so excited I get to use it and enjoy it now that it’s finished!
Love,
Tina
