Grandmother's Flower Garden - Literally!

In the past, quilters gathered in churches accross this nation to raise support those on the mission field.

I was fortunate enough to grow up in such a church. In fact, the above photo was taken for an article which appeared in our county newspaper back in the 1960's. The lady in the center was my great-grandmother.

She had a loving personality and devoted herself to caring for her family and those around her. If you look closely, you can see a white handkerchief laying on her lap under the quilt. I cannot ever remember seeing her without one of those handkerchiefs. However, I'm not sure what is up with that large white collar on her dress...lol. Being the thrifty person that she was, she was probably covering a hole or a stain on her dress.

The lady on the far right is her daughter, my grandmother. It is hard for me to express how deeply I love this woman, for she is in many ways my inspiration. She was smiling in this photo which was characteristic of her personality, and always looked at the drinking glass as being half-full. She was also my neighbor and I credit much of my early skills in sewing to the patience she extended toward teaching me. You may be interested to know that I was also present when the above photo was taken. I was pretty young at the time and spending the day with my grandmother. When the photo was taken I was on the floor under the quilt!

Recently, I had the opportunity at auction to purchase several quilts from my great-grandparents estate.

This Grandmother's Flower Garden quilt top was among the collection. I'm not certain when it was made, but my guess is that my grandmother and her sisters pieced it together during the 1930's when they were young girls. I can picture the three girls toting around these blocks to local sewing bees and proudly adding their blocks to the quilt. Some of the fabrics are most certainly original 1930's fabrics and my mother believes feed sack fabrics were used as well.

Here is a close up a few of the blocks.

Some are nicely pieced...

...and others not.

Sadly, at one time this top was washed and the edges are frayed.

It looks as if muslin was used for the pathway and it is pretty thin.

I guess I should fill in one more piece of information and tell you that this is one of 13 quilts I was able to acquire from my great-grandmother's collection.

The the awesome thing is...I didn't pay much for them, but that is a story in itself for another day.

So given the condition of this quilt top and the sentimental value to me personally, what would you do? Would you quilt it? Would you open up some of those ugly seams and correct them?

I'd love to gain some insight from others! 

                         Oh and I almost forgot! Here are my flowers for One Flower Wednesday.

I was able to finish two this week.

May you always Sew in Peace:)

Sandra