Have you ever made a story quilt?
 

A friend gave me "The Ultimate Quilting Book: Over 1,000 Inspirational Ideas and Practical Tips" for Christmas. FABULOUS book, filled with inspiration and information. Here's the link, in case anyone's interested: http://www.amazon.com/Ultimate-Quilt...dp/1855857553/

One of the quilts featured in this book is The Asylum Quilt. Here's an image of it: http://radicalcrossstitch.com/wiki/i...ylum_Quilt.jpg

It's a story quilt, created by an anonymous inmate at an asylum in the 1800s. I find it charming and textural, and I think I could spend hours looking at it.

My aunt recently created a family cookbook that included information about our genealogy and had stories from my father's siblings about what it was like to grow up without electricity at their grandmother's resort in the north woods of Wisconsin. I am inspired by these two things to create a story quilt in honor of my late father and his siblings, and I wondered whether anyone here had ever created a story quilt. If so, I'd love for you to post pictures here and tell me about how you approached the project and any lessons you learned along the way.

I recently completed a quilt for my grandson and it is a fairly detailed description of the flood and Noah's Ark--showing Mt. Ararat and all. I bought the cheater panel (supposedly to hang on his wall, but what kid wants something he can't touch?) from Keepsake Quilting about 4 years ago. One friend had donated a stash of blues and another a stash of multicolor earth tones, which were just begging to be used. With those I designed the quilt and finally got it done before the little grandson started to kindergarten this year.

The "Ultimate Quilting Book" is available on Amazon for under $2 plus shipping.