My grandmother lived next to us when I was growing up so I spent most every day with her, from the time I was very small until I graduated from high school.   She would tell me of times when she was growing up and what it was like when she was a small girl.  One of the things she shared with me was of watching her grandmother work on her loom weaving material.  Grandma was only around eight at the time and she would set there with hand sewing to work on while her grandmother worked away. 

This is a piece of the woven material that my great-great-grandmother wove, I have held on to it all these years, thinking of her when I look at it.

When I would go to visit Grandma she would pull out a big box that was full of scraps of material.  I would go through them checking them all over looking for just the right ones to make a pot holder or a doll's skirt.  How I wish that I had that box today to go through, what memories it had in it.  I think of all the dresses and shirts that must have been cut up to use in something else after they had served their purpose once.  Who contributed to those scraps, my grandmother's mother, or her mother?  What had they used them for, what dresses or scraps from quilts?  

Now I am working on a quilt that my grandmother made all the blocks for.  The pattern is the Bear Paw block.  She's still close to me, in thought and in material.  Because of her I have such a love of quilting.  

This is my grandmother's high school graduation photo of 1914.  It makes me smile every time I see it.