Mom's Christmas Present

This Christmas I finished this wall hanging for my mom.  It was probably the best gift that I gave this year.  Many years ago (back in the 90s) Mom and I used to get the Piecemakers quilt calendar and dream of making the beautiful quilt on the cover.  We decided to make the one in 1994.  It wouldn't be too hard if we made one block every month, would it?  We would work together and encourage one another so that we would actually finish it, right?  We quilters always start projects with good intentions, but we end up with a collection of unfinished projects stashed in a closet somewhere.  Mom got tired of stashing this project several years ago and gave her box of stuff to me.  I decided that these blocks were too pretty and had too much hand stitching in them to discard, so I would make a wall hanging with the blocks she finished so that she could enjoy them.  And boy would she be surprised when she opened this gift!

I couldn't find the calendar cover with the beautiful color photo of the original quilt, but above you can see the drawing on one of the papers.  You can actually still find this pattern for sale if you click here.  

Mom got 4 of her blocks done - January, February, March, and April.  She also made one of the setting blocks.  This was all hand applique stitching, and hand embroidery work around the windows and door and other details.  It was fun quilting this house!

In the box of "stuff" I also found sheets of plastic from the templates we made.  This was before there were rotary cutting instructions for everything.  We actually traced around plastic templates, added a 1/4" seam allowance and cut fabric by hand.  For most of the applique we used the freezer paper method.

I liked this block better after I added the quilting.  Getting the points right on this one was no easy task!.

The cow is SO cute with his 3D ears and braided tail.

And this is the setting block that I included in the quilt backing.  Believe me -- making just one of these blocks was enough!!

Are you wondering what Mom's reaction was yet??

The truth is she didn't even remember making these at first!  She kept saying, "I made that?  Really, I made that?"

"You mean I did all of that hand stitching?"

"I made that?"

Mom did quickly remember and loves the gift.  So we had a lot of fun talking about this project and when we bought our fabric and other memories surrounding these blocks.  We looked at all of the fabrics we used and talked about how pretty they are and what good taste we have.

I hope to make the blocks that I finished into a wall hanging for myself sometime soon.  You know I'll show you when I get it done!

​Thanks for bearing with me through this long post.  I'm linking up over at Crazy Mom Quilts Finish It Up Friday.  Happy quilting, friends!