Sunday, September 4, 2011

Make A Patchwork Quilt Your Family Will Love

By Jane Green


I was skimming through a couple of patchwork quilt patterns recently and nothing was really grabbing my attention. After looking at design after design, I began to ponder about how to make a patchwork quilt that my family would be interested in.

To be honest, I was fighting with ideas on something that everybody would like. With so many varied interests (and disinterests) it was hard to think about something that everyone would like.

But then I hit on an idea.

When I was doing some genealogy research 2 weeks back, I was discussing it with some older family members. While talking about the past and who married who, I realized that almost all of the other family members were interested in the conversation and were curious about their ancestors.

I went back and did some research and mapped out a good portion of the family lineage. I recollected this while contemplating patchwork quilt concepts and thought it'd be a smart idea if I combined the two!

A square patchwork pattern would form the best base to outline the family lineage. like a grid, I'll place the names of all of the families and people and assign them a square and position, the same way you do on paper.

When I first initally drew up the pattern, I discovered two things.

Firstly , the tree is best done sideways. Every time family members marry, change names and have children, the tree is expanded sideways instead of down.

Secondly, the square sizes I used initially were far too large. After halving the size of the squares, I found I could fit the whole family tree on the quilt and still have plenty of room in each square to sew the names and link them into the tree.

It isn't quite finished yet, but let me tell you, it's great and I have to hide it from my family. They are all so enthusiastic to see it, they all keep making an attempt to sneak in and take a look at it.

So if you are after a patchwork quilt idea that your family will love, go with this one.




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