There's a new small quilt shop about 45/50 miles from here in another small town. We;ve been over there twice..
Anyway, the first time one of the owners showed us all around the shop and in a pile I saw a BEAUTIFUL dahlia top - this thing is gorgeous - all done by hand and the edges were done in grandmother's fan, just an all around impressive job.
As I was exclaiming over it and admiring it, the owner started telling us the tale:
It seems this old lady passed away leaving several unquilted tops, plus a comforter, and completed diamond star (like the Texas star only very small diamonds)..
When the adult children came upon the quilts and quilt tops as they were cleaning out their mother's home, they decided they had no use for these things. They went to the new shop owner and asked her did she want these quilts and tops, because otherwise they were just going to throw them on the burn pile because 'we all use blankets now'.....
I think that's one of the saddest stories I've ever heard.
I myself have quilts I put together from blocks I've gotten at garage sales, and we've all seen quilts at the Goodwill or Salvation Army (altho I think the people who work there snatch most of those up).
I have a flower garden quilt from just such a thing - bought a box of stuff at a garage sale and there's all these 'flowers' in there. I knew I would never ever have the patience to finish the top as it should be so I appliqued the flowers onto squares and made the quilt that way. This was almost 30 years ago - if I had it to do over again I would have used larger squares..
But as I worked on those various quilts I just knew that these women were appreciating my finishing the job so to speak.
I've made my oldest daughter PROMISE that she will finish any quilt tops I leave behind and that she will not just toss out my 'stash' :shock:
Fortunately, she is very much a quilter and her youngest daughter (my youngest grand-daughter) is also an up and coming quilter.
I've made her promise about all my machines too! :wink: