Lloyd Den Boer

Like most women of her background , place , and time , my grandmother favoured sombre clothes . True , she might wear white polka dots on dark navy to a relaxed event like a picnic , but such occasions were exceptions . Customarily , Grandma ’ s dresses were black . When it came to patchwork quilts , however , her taste ran in the opposite direction . Grandma ’ s quilts were stunning riots of colour .

Grandma ’ s raw resources were seldom impressive . She collected cotton scraps from anyone willing to give clothing away . Worn out , outgrown , or out of fashion as they were , the clothes looked tired and dull at the start . Yet , with three winters of work , Grandma would make their colours sing . First , she snipped small hexagon patches from her scraps , storing the patches in a box , colour by colour , much as an artist would arrange a palette . Next , she pieced the patches together following a patchwork pattern called “ Grandmother ’ s Flower Garden .” Choosing a vibrantly coloured hexagon for a centre of one flower , she selected six contrasting hexagons to surround it and twelve of still another colour to surround the six . Having stitched all nineteen patches together , she laid the first flower aside to assemble and stitch another , and another , until she had enough for a quilt . Next , she sewed the entire quilt top together with a final row of white hexagons between each flower and its neighbours .

Once the top was stitched , anyone could appreciate the lively interplay of cheery flower colours , set off by the white boundaries between them . The patchwork quilt , however , was far from finished . Now Grandma basted the quilt top to its bottom fabric with a layer of batting in between . She assembled her friends for the first

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