Anniversary Quilt

While at the Ricky Tims Quilt Retreat in May I started the quilt for Mom and Dad for their 60th wedding anniversary. I got it finished just in time for the anniversary celebrations.

Here is what I wrote on the label:

Happy 60^th Wedding Anniversary

Mom and Dad

July 2014

Made with Love by

Joan

Norma Evans and Fred Fulton

Married: July 10, 1954

The background quilt is made from batiks and hand-dyed fabrics put together in crazy quilt style to represent the patchwork of life and especially the 60 years of the Fulton family.  The many twists and turns of the fabric pieces weave together in the quilt symbolic of the twists and turns that create the wonderful masterpiece of life.

Floating on top of the patchwork are a series of smaller quilts depicting the big sky and prairie landscape of Saskatchewan.

The iconic images of Saskatchewan include:

• ·      Wheat ready for harvest
• ·      Field of canola in bloom
• ·      Power lines that opened up life in rural Saskatchewan
• ·      Railroad and grain elevators leading into town
• ·      Hoar frost-covered tree standing alone on the prairie outlining the clear blue sky that is only found on the cold crisp prairie winter days
• ·      Ceiling of fluffy clouds overlooking a green field
• ·      Bessborough Hotel behind the Broadway Bridge in Saskatoon
• ·      Prairie sunset with the individual grain elevator standing as the sentinel of the prairie
• ·      A branch of the Evans cherry tree that produced the famous sour cherry jam for Fulton family members

Embedded within the quilting stitches on several of the quilts are the names of the family members. Norma and Fred are in the Prairie Sunset piece; Donald is in the piece with the power poles; Murray, Leona and Michael are in the piece with the two grain elevators; Glen, Teri, Lauren, Eric and Owen are in the piece with the canola field; Joan is in the piece with the three heads of wheat ready for harvest.