Ginny's quilt

The first time I met my Mother in law, she commented on my "birthing hips" and how easily I could have more children since I had already done so once....You know that little puff of smoke that follows the road runner when he takes off??  Well...that's what I was doing in my head! lol  At the time, I was recently divorced and had a 3 year old little girl (who had just charmed the pants off of my soon to be Mother in law).  The last thing on my mind was having more children! In her defence, she really did mean well.  She simply wanted desperately to see her youngets boy have children.  To this day, I'm sure that's why she held on as long as she did.

On November 1st, 2002, Ginny got her wish when Sophia was born.  She was so excited and couldn't wait to meet her.  From what I can remember, though, she only got to hold her once. :(  At that same time, her heath took a serious turn for the worse and continued that way until May when she was admitted to the hospital for the last time.  This is where the quilt story begins...

It was a Tuesday afternoon when I decided to make her a picture quilt.  She was always cold and was surrounding herself with family pictures so I thought it was something that she could enjoy.  By Thursday morning, I had everything cut and sewn together with the back pinned to the front.  I had all the pics together and took a quick trip to staples to have the pictures color copied on to iron on transfer paper.  The next 2 days were a blurr because staples used the wrong paper and I had to find a local printing shop that would hire out their heat press to transfer the pics to the fabric (side note - if you're looking for a heat press on a Friday afternoon...only the hand of God is likely to get you out of that jam.)  Oy!  So the quilt only made it to this point.  I took it into the hospital to show her though - so she did get to see it mostly finished but she passed away before I had the chance to finish it and it sat in a bag in my closet for the next 9 years.

A few months ago I was chatting with a friend who commented that she was going to have to learn how to crochet so that she could make an afghan that she had already bought the yarn for.  Knowing that she quilts, I offered a trade.  I sent her my work in progress quilt and she sent me a box of yarn.  Monday, she showed up at a meeting (we work together) and she had the quilt!  All I can say is...I bawled! :)  This what she brought back to me...

She completely scrapped the plain white backing that I sent her, in favor of a beautifully quilted picture filled back.  It's amazing and beautiful and so much more than anything I could have ever done on my own. 

Not only did she completely redo the back, but she added little extra's all around it in the form of stitched words like...

family

laughter...(tilt your head to the left...you'll see it! :)

and several others.  It wasn't hard to tell that my friend had put every bit as much love and caring into this quilt as I would have.  Sophia would never know her Grammy, but thanks to Louanne - she would finally have her quilt. 

Thursday was Sophia's Birthday, so we gave her the quilt.  She was absolutely thrilled with it.

When bed time came, her Dad tucked her in and told her the story of the quilt - how it started and who it was for.  She's my softie kid and it immediately became even more important to her...So much so that she didn't want to spread it out on her bed because she was worried that Ninja cat would claw it.  That night she rolled it up and stuck it next to her  pillow so that she could keep it safe and look at it all night.  lol 

she really does Love this quilt and I will never be able to say thank you enough to my dear friend Louanne, who was able to make something so beautiful out of my unfinished project. :)  Thank you VERY much my friend. :)  Your beautiful work has made 1 little girl extremely happy.