Throwback Thursday - Grandma's Sweet-16 Quilt for me, "Umbrella Girls" (1983)

Sandra has re-started Throwback Thursdays, and just when I found an old favorite of mine that's been missing since we moved in 2012. :)

This is my Sweet 16 quilt that my paternal grandmother made for me in 1983. I loved it then, and I still love it. I've captured close-ups of some of my favorite girls.

This loved quilt is what made it so very fun for me to quilt up the Bo-Peep vintage top that Great-Aunt Helen's grandmother had made for her in the 1930s. 

My grandmother really liked doing up tulip quilts and these umbrella girls, even though she was quilting two generations later than the Bo-Peep ancestor (different family lines).

My Umbrella Girls quilt is 68 x 88 inches and has a soft, puffy poly batt. 

Most of the fabrics are cottons, and that green is almost identical to the Kona Candy Green. I think there are a smattering of polyesters on the girls' dresses, though. 

You might be able to see that she zig-zagged her applique and used a permanent marker for their arms. Time-savers that did their jobs, as they're still holding up. None of the dresses/umbrellas are pulling up anywhere. 

My 20yo daughter's favorite right now.
She's the only one with her arm fully colored.
The Umbrella Girl, not my daughter.  ;D

But then Grandma hand-quilted it. I love that.  :)

My grandmother has been gone for several years. She lived to be 91, and in that time she made quilts for all her many children, grand-children, and great-granchildren. I personally got a baby quilt, a Sweet-16, and a personalized wedding quilt where she quilted the building we were married in and our names/dates/etc. 

Most of us brought as many of our Grandma quilts as we could to her funeral. There were probably 100 there. That's when I my quilting bug got kicked into overdrive. I want a legacy like that.

And I hope some day some of my descendants will love a quilt or two of mine the way I love this one.