At a Guild meeting several years ago a bag of hand-pieced blocks were offered to the members. No one stepped forward so I said I’d take them home and do something with them. It took a long time before I put the top together.

The fabric was very fragile and there were age marks and stains on several of the pieces. I asked for suggestions for cleaning it but they all involved scrubbing the spots with various solutions and I felt the fabric wouldn’t stand up to that sort of treatment.

When I was almost finished the quilting I went back to the woman who had offered the blocks and asked if she would be able to track down the woman who donated them to her. It was a friend of her daughter and they were able to contact her to see if she was interested. She was!

It was her grandmother who pieced the blocks so the quilt will be going back to the family. It was an honour for me to be part of the journey.

At least once a year the Guild holds a Community Quilts weekend. Most years there are a crew of members who sandwich the tops that have been completed and a larger crew of members work at making tops.

In preparation for the weekend I had a bin of tops that I had always intended to donate and I was sorry that they weren’t doing any sandwiching. On the second day I decided the Guild could store those tops just as easily as I could so I added them to their pile.

I don’t know if I’ll get them back again for quilting but I will keep my eye out for them to come back.

UPDATE: It wasn’t until I posted the photo that I noticed I had one of the blocks turned the wrong way (bottom right corner). So I pulled the top back from the Guild, turned the block around and I’ll keep it to do the quilting on before I give it back.

UPDATE: This was shown at the December, 2024 Guild meeting’s Show and Share.