A friend's quilt

I made a short run to Mrs. Furui's yesterday and one of our patchwork friends was there getting some batting (Mrs. Furui keeps a bolt for all of us to use.) Surprise! Mrs. Orihashi has been keeping her quilt secret from all of us but the cat's out of the bag since she needed to bring it out to measure batting.

Look at this cute quilt! One reason Mrs. Orihashi wasn't eager to share this with us is because she was embarrassed to admit that she's been working on it for so long (you can tell she isn't a full time quilter since she thought she was the only one who has quilt tops and blocks in their closet for years.) She started this when her daughter was a third grader and the girl is going into high school this spring. That's not too bad. Only five years!

I love this quilt for two reasons. One because Mrs. Orihashi is such a feminine lady and her delicate embroidery shows her personality. Another reason I like this is because the quilt ended up being a joint project between her daughter and herself! I think at the beginning, the little girl just wanted to participate in the making of the blocks and while mom embroidered, the daughter made a couple blocks of her own. Look at the applique that the child did! Isn't that great? And it really shows the girl's efforts and spirit. It isn't perfect and the stitches are very obvious but that's what makes the block so wonderful!

As the years went by, Mrs. Orihashi's daughter probably decided that this was never going to get done and so she and mom chose some fun piggy fabric and cut out the pigs and the little girl stitched those on blocks too. This is just a fun quilt showing a child's interests, her fumbling fingers, and the love between mother and daughter.

I don't know when Mrs. Orihashi's quilt will be completed but I'm pretty sure there's a young girl who is looking forward to having this quilt on her bed and will someday make quilts of her own!