Indian Gift-Maker and Her Extraordinary Friends

(I was going to call this post "Strip Quilters," but then thought that might be misleading...)
Grandma Windham was a quilter and seamstress extraordinaire. She also saved every scrap she ever had, cut them into strips, and taped them onto a toilet paper rolls. At the garage sale this past summer there were two huge (think two feet by three feet) zip-lock bags FULL of these scraps. I took one home thinking a strip quilt would make a really great gift for...someone. Well, someone particular.
Back in October I started unrolling strips of fabric from the toilet paper rolls to find that some were only two inches long and some were only a 1/2" wide. Some were over four feet long and three inches wide. I sorted them by colors - blue, red, purple, green, yellow, orange, tan, brown, and white. By November I was sorting each color by length, shortest to longest. I had even sewn all of the blue strips and some pink together before Thanksgiving. After turkey day it was crunch time. If I wanted to give this away then I needed it done really soon. I sewed whenever I had a chance and got almost all of the strips sewn together...and then I called for back up. Tara and Taffy came over and spent five hours with me sewing, trimming, and piecing until the quilt top was completed. I provided lunch and a peach pie. Three sewing machines! Awesome!Then we sat and looked at the finished product (almost - just needs a border)...And I decided/they convinced me that I couldn't give it away. I know! How awful is that!? I spent the next three days contemplating new gift ideas for that person and found something that worked just fine...and now I have a beautiful quilt top waiting to be quilted (a project for January).
I have truly special friends. Two in a billion.