Thursday, February 12, 2009

Vegetables for Dad

When my parents moved from the house they’d been in for 57 years, to a condominium, Dad had to give up his garden. It was a huge sacrifice for him as he loved growing vegetables. Not flowers….vegetables! He was 89 when they moved and is now 94. I wanted to make him the quilt from Ruth McDowell’s book “Pieced Vegetables”. I’ve talked and talked about it and finally realized I better get going on it or he won’t be here to enjoy it! So I’ve now got most of the blocks done. I plan to fly in to visit them for a few days during spring break and hope to have it finished for that visit.

I have paper pieced most of the blocks, but the lettuce, the star of the quilt, I decided to do with the curved piecing pattern. It was difficult and I ended up hand basting it and pressing before I sewed it, but it turned out well.

The lettuce is the star of the quilt because when I was born, first child, all the other women in the ward got flowers. My Dad brought Mum his first head of lettuce from that year’s garden. She still hasn’t forgiven him! I’ll post a picture of the quilt when it’s finished, but here’s the lettuce.