Family memories - 365 Challenge

I am very interested in creating positive family memories and stories, and spend much energy documenting our extended family's development, our adventures and our challenges, in many different ways...photography, scrapbooking, quilting, etc. Here is a quilt I made in 2001 called "Ten of my mothers". I made this quilt for a guild challenge in which we were to make a quilt with "10 of something", celebrating the guild's 10th anniversary. I chose to honour several of the women who were guiding and nurturing forces when I was growing up, including my aunts, grandmothers, and one greatgrandmother. My mom worked full time and went to night/summer school to get her university degree, so we were often in the care of other women. Lucky for us, at that time, all of the other women in the family were homemakers and were available to help out. I wanted to make an antique looking quilt, and used only neutral fabrics for the quilt. On the right is a photo of my favorite aunt, who was a marvelous baker, knitter, and nurturer. My brother and I went to visit her grave today and give thanks for all the love and care we received from our Aunt Lottie. On the left is the quilt label. Today this quilt hangs right next to my Mom's bed and is one of her favorites! We look forward to visiting her tomorrow to wish her Happy Mother's Day!

I have started a new family memory quilt and you can read more from the woman who has started this great idea at her website called Leanne's House...click on the top right "365 challenge tutorial". I started the quilt on May 1st and have been documenting the life of our family...quilts I am working on, places we go, ordinary family details, and activities...anything I think I might like to remember from all the ordinary days we enjoy together! I have the fabric strips cut out, and similar to the memory quilt above, I am using only neutral fabrics to look like pages from my journal. I plan to do some embroidery stitching but am still deciding at which stage I will do that. If this sounds like fun to you, it's never to late to start your own family journal 365 challenge quilt!