So I had started this quilt over the winter, just cutting out pieces and working at it in between other things. I pieced my blocks into rows during the Super Bowl, and then let it sit a bit. But some weeks back, I found out that my grandma’s heating bill for her apartment was just outrageous. I guessed, correctly, that she was compensating by keeping her apartment quite cold. She is 90, thin and tiny, and has poor circulation, so was often uncomfortable. Now, she has ample means to heat that place to a nice, tropical level, but born at the end of World War I in Denmark to a young, widowed mother, and having married and started a family of her own during years of Nazi occupation in World War II, she is extremely frugal. She is so very generous with us family, but pinches at every turn on her needs. So I got busier on this quilt, thinking that its colors would remind her of home and that its dimensions would be perfect to keep her cozy in her chair as she reads for hours. I bought more fabric to finish it off, got it basted and quilted, and now had to tackle the binding. I had never done a binding before. The two larger projects I’m working on are being pieced by hand and not close to being sandwiched or bound, and all my machine quilting has only been done on kitty quilts. Those were simply turned, like a pillow… no binding. I stopped at my local quilting shop in Rochester, Cristina’s Quilt Shoppe, because I saw they had a binding class scheduled. That class was filled. “But we’ll have another one in late April.” “I can’t wait that long! My grandma is cold!” They called me days later with an opening in the March class, but by that time, I was very sick with the flu. I wound up getting all my quilting books out, trying to make sense of the binding instructions. Finally I got a clue to at least get myself started and eventually fumbled my way through the process LOL!

Grandma Elly got her quilt last evening, and was really delighted. She’s been an expert seamstress for most of her life, so wanted to know all about how I put it together, and so on. (I told her not to look too closely at it. “But I’m a sewer; I know about these things.” “Yes, I know you’re a sewer. That’s why I don’t want you looking closely at it!” LOL) She called me just now to report that it kept her warm on the couch during her TV programs last night, that it wasn’t too heavy and that it “cooperated with however she wanted to lay with it.” Is that cute, or what? I told her I try to make cooperative quilts. 😉

I’m so blessed to be the age that I am (ahem!) and still have my grandmother who is also one of my best friends. Her courage and wit continue to amaze me.