Last Friday marked one year since my Dad died. I had signed up for a quilting workshop with Mary Elizabeth Kinch, author of "Small Pieces, Spectacular Quilts" a few months ago and decided I would use my Dad's shirts for my project. Mary Elizabeth spoke at our London Friendship Guild meeting on Thursday night and we had a great trunk show of her quilts, including the workshop quilt, "Go with the Flow".
I met Mary Elizabeth several years ago at Gwen Marston's Beaver Island Quilt retreat in Elk Rapids, Michigan. It was fun to see her again and catch up.
After some discussion about string quilts in general and different ways to make them, we cut into our fabrics and started sewing the strings together. Mary Elizabeth also showed us pictures of several antique and newer string quilts. Here is her "Go with the Flow" quilt.
By lunch time, everyone had made at least one row of strings.
Here are my two rows, not pressed yet
Two more, pressed and ready to trim.
Tonight, I made a couple more rows and then made my first block of the 16 needed to make this queen sized quilt.
As I sewed, I thought about my Dad and the times that he wore these shirts. Dad loved to stop at Shaw's Ice Cream for a Black Cherry Cone so my husband and went there on the weekend.
It seemed like a fitting thing to do.
ice cream in memory - what a great thing to do and have fun making the quilt and thinking of happy memories
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