Jackie's Choice Quilt
In 2013 Barbara Brackman ran a block of the week program and the theme was Grandmother’s Choice: Votes For Women. My friend, Becky, does block testing for Barbara and that’s really the only way that I knew about the program. I generally don’t participate in these but something about this one intrigued me enough to make 2 sets of blocks. One set was made with my shibori fabrics and the other was made with symmetry fabrics. I wanted to show how different the blocks could look by just changing the fabrics.
Once I had the blocks done I realized that I had created sets that perfectly represented each of my grandmothers. This one is for my paternal grandmother, Jacqueline Larissa Ratliff Ottaway from Grundy and Roanoke, VA (1916 – 1999). She was the first woman in her family to get a masters degree (education) and she retired as a high school science teacher. She took up quilting after retirement but never finished a quilt. She was making an epic king size Cathedral Window quilt that inspired my Cathedral Window quilt. She had 4 sons so she was thrilled when I came along and she had a girl in the family. She ultimately had 3 granddaughters and 4 grandsons and she was clearly most interested in the girls. That's why I decided to gift this quilt to my youngest female cousin, now a pediatrician in North Carolina. Hopefully this quilt will remind her of good memories and provide new memories for her and her daughters.
Working on this quilt was such a joy. Finding just the right fabrics for the block pieces is a real puzzle and I loved the challenge. I finished both tops in 2013 or 2014 and finished Lura's Choice in 2016. This one has languished because I couldn't figure out what I was going to do with the quilt and how to quilt it. I connected with my cousin again recently and that's when I knew that this was meant to be her quilt. Custom quilting on these symmetry quilts is kind of a waste of time because you can't see the quilting on the busy fabrics. I picked a swirly pantograph and bronze thread to add some texture to the black background. I'm happy with the way it turned out. Here are some individual blocks where you can try to see the piecing lines.
The back is hand dyed in medium brown. The threads are Superior Magnifico and SoFine.