Last Wednesday was what would have been my mother's 84th birthday.. I dreamt of her every night it seems.  She was a quilter and a sewer, a painter, cake decorator, musician and artist, she knitted and crocheted. She did some out of necessity, some for pleasure; she was good at whatever she turned her hand to.

  She started sewing  as a young woman.  

 Dad bought her a Singer Sewing Machine with his money from the army and she had that machine right up to a few months before she died. On that machine  she  sewed for my sister and I, (I don't remember her sewing for my brothers), she sewed for her home and she sewed for herself.

  She made almost everything from dresses to coats and jackets and even her "unmentionables".  Anything that she could for her home.

She started quilting  in her sixties and jumped in with both feet.  She even  dabbled with painting and dyeing fabric ..she made herself and Dad a quilt and one for each of my 3 brothers and their wives.  When Dad died she gave their quilt to a granddaughter and made herself another quilt for a single bed and started making cuddle quilts for charity.

This last year I started making her quilts...she could no longer remember how to work her machine.

  When she went into a nursing home I wanted to make her a wall hanging for her room.

She never got to see it...

The quilt is a Rose Window from the book ROSE WINDOW QUILTS

by Angela Besley.

I call it

"A ROSE FOR MOM."

I had barely started when she passed away...I had a very hard time finishing it.  Then one day I decided to finish it in her honour.

this wall hanging was machine appliqued and  machine quilted.

It took me HOURS to square it up..I worked until the wee hours in the morning trying to square it and couldn't....finally I went to bed and came back to it the next day..

I keep it on my dining room table so that I am reminded of her every day.