"Homage to Edith" is a completed top! :-) It has a name, is all pressed, and folded away awaiting a back.

I'm thinking I'll put together some orphan blocks from a BOM I did a few years ago for the backing. I really want to stick to the "use what you have" sense to truly pay homage to my grandmother Edith...

The name came about as I was constructing the final border... I found two places, close together where there was a problem -- in one a corner of the flip and stitch patch had flopped when I'd assembled and so the seam allowance was showing, along with the raw edges of the patch. Arg. The second was a spot that I'd missed catching the edge of the fabric with another piece when I stitched before flipping -- meaning that on a cursory look all was well, but in reality the edge of the fabric was raw... My first inclination was to simply applique a patch over the two "problems... then I realized there was an even easier solution available to me since this was only a top not a completed quilt yet :-) I simply satin stitched over the raw edge seam, and top stitched the flopped piece back over where it belonged... The sort of solution my grandmother Edith would have made.

Edith was a pioneer on the Canadian prairies. Quilts were for using. Scraps of fabric were for using. Clothing was for reclaiming and using... pretty much everything was for using, reusing, and repurposing... Nothing was simply/just decorative. Edith calls to me as an artist these days. She wasn't striving for perfect. Her quilts are actually fairly "ugly" if you're looking for a balance of light and dark highlighting the pattern. She was striving for functional and beautiful within her confines. The quilts from her home have little or no yardage -- if there was yardage used it was too small an amount for the job of making a whole quilt! Just about al the fabric in the quilts of her's I've seen is likely reclaimed clothing... This quilt reminds me of her, of her down-to-earthness & her practicality; her using what was at hand and not going out an buying coordinating fabric. Those are traits I admire and try to emulate.



And for your viewing pleasure I also include a shot of the back of the quilt top... Lots of 6" foundations in there :-) I love how simply sewing the crumb blocks into a long strip and cutting off the length needed mostly kept the block seams from lining up... I also appreciate how flat the quilt ended up being by measuring through the middle and making the border fit the edge...