4 Generations of Grandmothers

Several years ago, I took a class at a TNNA market on making a multi-media memory book.  The class was by The Thread Gatherer and they gave us the most beautiful packets of cardstock, fabric, hand-dyed ribbons, overdyed floss, etc. and chart packs on how to make fabric books and memory books.  Now, I'm not a big scrapbooker, but I like to learn scrapping techniques; so since I had all these wonderful supplies, I decided to make a memory book.  Here's the cover:

 

I used one of my favorite old photos as the inspiration.  Here I am as a baby being held by my great-grandmother with my mother and grandmother looking on.  We always called it the "4 generations" picture. Now that I have grandchildren, I decided to use being a Grandmother as a theme.

I made a page for each person in the photo, gave each page a quote about Grandmothers, and tied them together by using a matching button on each page.

The first page highlights my great-grandmother "Grandma Daisy".  I am fortunate to have memories of her.  She died when I was small, but I can remember visiting her at her big house in the country.  She did a lot of redwork, so I added a small redwork butterfly salvaged from a pillowcase she made.  Here the button is the center of a flower I embellishe with silk ribbon.

Page 2 is for my Grandmother Richardson.  She was a school teacher and liked to read to us.  I love this picture of her reading to me when I was little.  I added a photo of her when she was young and used the button to hold the tag with the quote.  The little doily is one she crocheted as a Christmas ornament.

My mother's page is a little different.  She was never into needlework but appliques these amazing flags, paints birdhouses, and grows flowers.  She takes pride in her restored 19th century house and makes it a welcoming and comfortable home for her grandchildren (and children) to visit.  Her page has a bird house that uses the button as the hole.  I had some bird and cat buttons tucked away just waiting for the right project.  This was it!

And of course, the last page is for me.  I have pictures of me with my granddaughters.  In one of them, Aislyn looks on while I show off the Lizzie Kate stocking I made for her.  I added a little cross stitch piece I did years ago and put the button in a row with other buttons for embellishment.

I really enjoyed sewing, stitching, glueing, and planning my book.  I'm not sure if I'll do another one, but I'm glad to have this one completed  Started in 2009 and finished in 2012!

Happy New Year to all my readers!
Sherri

P.S.  Since I started this book we have a third grandchild and my brother and sister are both grandparents now!