"Nana Sews a Quilt" (my first little book)

Let me step back and show you a project that started small as a gift for my grand daughter, Rachel, age 10 (then) and lives far away from me in Virginia. I wanted to sew her a quilt remenisent of the one her mother had when she was a child. It was a pink, delicate quilt of Sun Bonnet Sue. Catrina loved that quilt and even though is was well worn and tattered, she wanted to preserve it. I took the tattered quilt and, to my best attempt, I repaired it. The idea of following the tradition of sewing a quilt for the new generation was germinated.

I wanted to sew a new version of the Sun Bonnet Sue. But when I went researching, I found a 'plethora' of information on this 100 year old quilt pattern. I ended up designing a small single sized quilt for Rachel that included a sleeping girl under a cover of 12 Sun Bonnet Sue blocks, each representing a different era of the pattern. Phew! This was getting to be a bigger project than the first idea plan.

With the help of quilting friends at the Winnemucca Quilters Group, I learned to cut, stitch, stuff and stitch some more. And the purist I am, I sewed it all by hand with just a tiny needle and lots of bandaides for punctured fingers. After I finished it and was ready to pack it off to Rachel, I decided to write a little book with all the information I had collected on the history of the Sun Bonnet Sue pattern as well as what it took to create and construct Rachel's quilt. The result was a colorful little book published on Lulu.com where you can go to purchase the book. Have a look.

Nana Sews A Quilt by Sherry Harig