My paternal grandmother handquilted, I remember her setting up her wooden frame in her dining room...I wonder how old the frame was. It was very dark wood and looked like it had seen many many years.
She made my sister and I two matching quilts for our twin beds, each square had an umbrella on a pale background, with the umbrellas made out of her dress scraps; sashing was a 1930s green. She embroidered our names in one corner, along with the year, '1960'. We adored them - picking out our favorite prints over and over.
She didn't like our mother (wrong religion, wrong ethnicity) though they had reached some sort of detente; Mother always bent over backwards to stay on her good side. One day we came home from school and our quilts were gone, replaced by chenille spreads. Me being about 9 years old, and my sister 2 years younger, the reason for their sudden disappearance we never knew. Now I think they must have had some sort of intense disagreement that caused my mother to dispose of them or give them away. Mom was a terrific sewist and needleworker, and would have appreciated all the work that went into them. I think it was my Grandma she didn't appreciate. I loved this Grandma, yet also remember the way she treated my mother. Myself, I had the best MIL ever created, thank god.