I am excited to be a part of the Color it Red Blog Hop along with several other fabulous quilters showing off their "red" projects for February! I will be posting mine on the last day - February 21st, so be sure to come back for a visit on Friday!
I also want to give a big THANK YOU to Carol for hosting this. Check out her blog at Just Let Me Quilt!
In the mean time, check out the others at the links below!
February 17
February 18
February 19
February 20
February 21
Daughters of Dorinda (you are here)
Hosted by:
Carol @ Just Let Me Quilt
I am also linking up with Lynette at What a Hoot Quilts. She is paper piecing a beauty that you must see!
I have a few red projects to feature BEFORE my scheduled day. Let me begin with the whole reason we started this blog which was to document the making of an hairloom quilt with a bit of red in it!
This amazing woman named Dorinda was my great great great great grandmother. I want to give a brief history about this blog which was established in 2008 in honor of her. I discovered quilting years before I discovered her, but I gained a deep love and respect for Grandma as I found us to be kindred spirits. She was an industrious woman who pioneered the West as she settled in Pine Valley, Utah with her family. She grew her own cotton to make her own batting, hand dyed her fabrics from local plants, and made award winning quilts which nearly every family in her small community possessed. She also won best of show at the World Fair in Chicago on a quilt she designed and made while in her 80s.
In her memory, my mother Lyn, her two cousins, Marie and Ann, and myself remade Dorinda's masterpiece quilt at which time we started this blog. Those quilts are featured in the banner at the top of this blog with the four of us. Another cousin, Dorine, also remade a different quilt of Dorinda's featured here. See all the posts about the entire project here. We all visited Pine Valley together in 2010 to see the little church where she worshiped and served as the Relief Society President for her ward for about 30 years. She was and we are members of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints. It was an emotional experience for us - see the post here. Dorinda was also a very small woman, around 5 ft tall, and was able to get a lot accomplished in a short amount of time. I too am about 5 ft tall and have her genetic gift of speed.
Below are photos of my Dorinda re-make which I started in 2008. My mother and I chose to hand dye our fabrics in her memory using professional dyes from Dharma. I did my best to recreate the pattern from photos of her quilt. I have never seen the original quilt she made other than in this photo. I would love to know where it is now. The applique' is all done by hand, and I hand quilted it.
You can read more about our Dorinda Quilt Journey at this link.
This is a photo of Dorinda's award winning quilt that we recreated from this photograph.
This is Mom's quilt.
Marie made hers very very small and with a black background.
Ann is seen hand quilting hers with her mother. What a treasure!
Ann added photos of my Great Grandmother, Mamie (Ann's Grandmother) as well as Ann's mother and others. I was fortunate to know and love my Great Grandma Mamie. I lived with her while going to college.
Dorine is pictured below hand quilting on Ann's quilt. Dorine is a sister to Ann and Marie. She also remade a Dorinda quilt.
You can really see the size difference between mine and Marie's.
They are absolutely beautiful quilts.... Amazing.
ReplyDeleteOh my goodness -- what an amazing tribute to an amazing quilter! I think it is so cool that so many of your family members wanted to take on the journey of recreating this lost family heirloom quilt together. Dorinda would be SO proud of her legacy!
ReplyDeleteThese are beautiful quilts - what a wonderful tribute to your entire family!
ReplyDeleteWhat a fabulous story ♥ A wonderful way to honour your g-g-g-g grandmother. The quilts - including the original - are all beautiful.
ReplyDeleteWhat stunning quilts both the original (made at the age of 84?!?!) and your family of remakes. A true labor of love and honoring your family's quilt history! I love that there are both full-size and miniature remakes. So sad the original isn't around but so good she won so it was fully documented that way.
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