Nana's Hankies

My mom was known as "Nana" to my children. She passed away suddenly in November of 2009 at the age of 88. She was healthy as a horse and had just put a meatloaf in the oven of her own home when she collapsed. She loved to cook, bake, play bingo, read and watch Wheel of Fortune!

She also loved her kids...all 8 of 'em.

As I cleaned out her closet and dresser drawers in weeks following, I came across a small pile of delicate hankies. I remembered Mom using them in her younger days, probably before the softer tissues came into production.

Anyway, I had these hankies saved in a box in my sewing room, thinking I could do something with them. I came across a quilt on pinterest that had been made using hankies. Of course, I didn't have enough of them to make a whole quilt, but I could use part of them to make a table runner, right? My creative juices were in gear!

So, I chose just the purple-flowered hankies for this project. Purple is my color.

I cut out the flowers in squares that I could use.

I went through my stash to gather some low-volume fabrics. I wanted these hanky flowers to be the star of the show!

Then I just improv-ed my way around the hanky pieces and sewed on and on, thinking about my sweet mom. Apparently, I thought about her too much as I sewed, because I ended up with a table runner that is now 5 feet long! Holy crap!

 

The back is pieced with some of the  low-volume fabrics.

   

I quilted large petals around each hanky piece to make it look like a large flower.

Then stipple stitched the rest.

I love the puckery goodness of it!

Above, are photos of the back where you can

see the flower stitching.

It's one of my favorite pieces!
Nana would be happy.

*Day 26 of 31 Days of Blogging Challenge