mother/daughter quilt: delivered

Maple Stars, 2010, 53" x 43"
COLLECTION OF JANE BELYEA

Today my mother turned 83 and I turned up in Victoria with our finished mother/daughter quilt. During production, Mom admitted she wasn't too sure about the composition. Now she is very pleased with the results—so much so that the lap quilt’s new home is her living room.

mother/daughter quilt: day four

With three days in Victoria after Christmas, Mom and I moved our lap quilt project forward. But the top was not complete by my departure time.

I bundled everything up and kept working on the piecing in Seattle over the holiday week. One whole section was jettisoned and I added some new fabric to brighten the composition.

Mom’s 83rd birthday is in February. I will return to Victoria then with a finished quilt filled with our shared energies.

mother/daughter quilt: day one

In Victoria last weekend, Mom and I began work on a lap quilt together—making it “my way.” We chose some fabrics and made our first “building blocks” although there was no plan for the overall design.

Nothing was measured. The fabric was sliced up randomly with a rotary cutter. I cut. Mom sewed. I ironed.

After a few hours in the sewing room, Mom begged me to stop. “You have exhausted me, Young Lady, with your counter-intuitive approach. Let’s tidy up and go out to lunch.” That sounded good to me.

I’ll be back to Victoria a few more times this winter to continue on our quilt.

jane’s modern quilt

Lap Quilt by Jane Belyea, 2009

When I visited my 82-year old mom in Victoria in May, we treasured hunted at local thrift stores for quilting fabrics. We used the “crease test” to check the cotton content—if we pinch pressed a fabric and it held a crisp crease, it was cotton.

For $4.00 CDN Mum picked up some boldly printed cotton with pink, teal, yellow and blue throughout. Here is the mid-sized quilt that she made with her bargain fabric. My dad likes the quilt so much that he made her agree to not give it away (which she does with all her wonderful quilts!).