The Blue Lone Star
It was a 50 year project started by my great grandmother Frances Meyer Gramlich about 1963-64. She cut her blue diamonds by hand with cardboard templates. Alas she got fairly far but passed away when I was 8 in 1968. It then came to my grandmother Helen who does not really sew. She tried a few seams on her sewing machine and put it away.
A few years later Grandma Helen gave it to her sister in law, (Frances's daughter) my great aunt Mille Gramlich Vollmer to finish up for her. Mille worked on it off and on for a few years but she also had her own sewing and quilts to do so it was not a high "must do" on her timeline. She did get it further but her own health failed and it came back to my grandmother Helen again. Helen then asked her other sister in law on the other side of her family (my great aunt Bonnie Jenkins) to work on it. She did so and got the top done but then the two ladies had a falling out. Again the top came back to grandma Helen until about 2006. We helped Grandma Helen clear out her home so she could move to a nursing home. At that time she gave it to me for my son.
I would say the hardest thing about this project was dealing with the varied stitch lengths, seam allowances, and sewing styles of the 4 women who worked on it before me with varying amounts of sewing experience. I did not want to rip out ANY of their work and yet I had to make it work. It took a little patience. I promised to finish it up --and now I have. It now lives with love at my son and his wife's home. They value it and the work we all did to get it to them. I am privileged to say I am the 5th woman in my family to have sewn love into it's seams. That's the essence of quilting to me.
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