A New Quilt Project: The Generations Quilt

Hello Friends and Welcome!

This week, I wanted to share some of the background information on one of my most recent projects, the Generations Quilt!

You may remember this project from last week's Project Update, or from it's appearance on Instagram. But while I may be sharing it for the first time, the Generations Quilt has actually been in progress for many years. So long, in fact, that it is even older than I am myself.

The short version of the story is that the Generations Quilt is a collaborative family heritage project. It will feature the handy work of four individuals from four generations of my family ancestry. To me, this project represents tradition, remembrance, and a connection forged by our shared love of making.

The longer story is as follows:

Great Grandmother's Quilt Blocks

For me, this story starts several years ago, sometime around 2016.

At that time, I was living with my Grandma. She found, one day, that her closets had grown full and asked that I help her to reorganize and downsize.

We sifted through an assortment of paraphernalia, removing what wasn't needed, returning things belonging to relatives and friends, and rearranging what was left. And among the clutter, we found a box containing Great Grandmother's Dresden Plate quilt blocks.

Grandma took the blocks from the box and together we admired the work that had gone into them. The careful stitches, the variety of fabric, the touch of a hand that I've never known, but which Grandma knew so well. I remember her saying that she would love to see these blocks become a completed quilt, but that she wasn't sure she had the skills or time to be the one to do it.

Then the blocks were lovingly folded away and returned to their box on the shelf. But they didn't stay there.

The Inception of the Generations Quilt

For years after, I carried those blocks in the back of my mind, debating if, perhaps, I was the one who should finish them. Did I have the skills to finish the quilt properly? Would what I make of these blocks disappoint those who had waited so long to see the quilt finished? Did I even have the right to finish a quilt started by someone I had never known?

After much rumination, I slowly came to realize that a collaboration with my Great Grandmother deserved more than just my own skills. I decided the best way to finish the quilt was by inviting my Mother and Grandma to finish it with me.

How amazing would it be to have a project made by the hands of so many generations of my family? To work together with them in creating something that represented all of us, as a whole?

But now I had a new concern; would they be willing to try?

I worried this project would carry an intimidating degree of emotional significance for them, and that my encouragement wouldn't be enough to persuade them. To my delight, they were both very interested in the project and quickly agreed to participate!

Grandma even surprised me by bringing not only the Dresden Plate blocks we originally found together, but also a set of Six Pointed Star blocks, also pieced by my Great Grandmother!

Augmenting the Idea

With the blocks from my Great Grandmother alone, we already have a good start on making a quilt. The addition of sashing and borders would transform each of the two block sets into a twin sized quilt top.

However, a big part of the concept of the Generations Quilt is that it should reflect the unique quilt making style of each of the four of us involved. That is to say, I should make blocks that look like I made them, Mom should make blocks that look like Mom made them, and Grandma should make blocks that look like Grandma made them.

Simply working together to sew my Great Grandmother's existing blocks into a finished quilt wouldn't create that intergenerational effect.

Knowing myself, I already suspect that my blocks won't have white backgrounds like my Great Grandmother's blocks have. My style tends to lean into darker backgrounds and bolder colours, so the blocks I make for this project should reflect that.

Mom and Grandma will each have to decide for themselves what their style is and how they'd like to apply it to this project.

Concerning Cohesion

Grandma did raise a concern about maintaining cohesion within this collaborative project. If we each are doing our own thing while piecing the blocks, will they actually end up looking like they belong together?

I believe this won't be a problem.

Since the three of us agreed that we didn't want to mix the Dresden Plate and Six Pointed Star blocks within is single quilt, the cohesion will come through the repetition of the block pattern. An all Dresden quilt will be cohesive simply because all the blocks are Dresden Plate blocks.

Here's a quick example, the sample above uses four unique block palettes, representing our four unique styles. So while our individual styles are different, the quilt will remain cohesive due to the use of a single block pattern throughout.

The result will be that we have a few quilts that feature only the Dresden Plate, and a few more featuring only the Six Pointed Star, but that all of the completed quilts will look collaborative, being representative of all the people who made them, yet still cohesive.

Quilt Logistics

While we have the creative side of the project fairly well in hand, there are still a few logistical concerns to consider.

The goal is that over the next couple of years, Grandma, Mom, and myself will each make a few Dresden Plate blocks, and a few Six Pointed Star blocks to add to those already made by my Great Grandmother. The blocks will then be pieced into a series of quilts, each containing at least one block made by each of us.

We will make at least 3 quilts overall, so the three of us can each have our own Generations Quilt, but it would also be nice to share this project with more of the family. I know they would really appreciate a quilt with so much family history sewn into it. The actual number of quilts we are able to make will depend on the number of blocks we end up with.

Size is another thing we haven't put much thought into. These aren't meant to be huge quilts, not queen or king sized certainly, but we should be able to make twin sized bed quilts, or smaller lap sized quilts if preferred. Once again, this will come down to how many blocks we end up making overall.

The final concern is the effect of sewing vintage fabric to modern fabric. I know this can sometimes be finicky, so I will need to do a little more research before we get to the point of actually assembling the quilts. If you have any tips, warnings, or recommendations, please leave them for me in the comments below!

Friends, thank you for joining me again this week! I hope you enjoyed reading about the Generations Quilt project as much as I've enjoyed planning it!

As I mentioned earlier, this is intended as a long term project; I will be making blocks over the next year or so, then assembling the actual quilts in the months or years that follow, with the help of my Mother and Grandma of course.

Future progress on the Generations Quilt will be shared in upcoming Project Updates as well as on my Instagram, @vafibrearts. I will also share pictures of Mom and Grandma's blocks whenever they allow, and am excited to see how each of us chooses to express our own quilt making styles!

But I'm not quite done sharing my Generations Quilt progress yet! Please visit me again next week for more about how I drafted the block templates we'll be using for our blocks.