Adding To An Heirloom

Day 36: The work on Mousie's grandmother's quilt is progressing much more rapidly than I had expected. All the "streets" dividing the blocks are done (shadow-quilting and twisted-ribbon "DNA"), the inside edge of the blue borders is stitched all the way around, and I've finished my first plate block. Now I'm taking a break from pushing the needle through multiple layers of fabric to work on the "character panels" (crow, mouse, goldfinch and hummingbird) on the side borders where there are only two layers of cloth sandwiching the batting. I elected to finish this plate first because it was the most problematic. There were issues with buckling in the blades, but I was able to overcome them without having to undo any of grandma's stitching (my priority is to preserve her work in its entirety), and other irregularities were accommodated to my satisfaction (if perhaps not to perfection). As Mousie herself has said, the irregularities make the quilt feel more "human." And now it's time for me to get back to work, doing my part in adding to an heirloom.