Grandma Wiggins' Cross-Stitched Quilt

My last heirloom post involved my great-grandmother Elizabeth Smith. Forty to fifty years after she finished her yo-yo coverlet, her daughter-in-law Helen Wiggins (married to two of Elizabeth's sons, Norval and Linny—not at the same time) was working hard on a very different quilt. In the 1970s, my grandmother Helen was cross-stitching this masterpiece.

You can tell from the colors that this kit was a product of the 1970s, can't you? According to my mother it took her mom years to finish the cross-stitching but she's pretty sure it was finished by the time Linny died in 1986.

After Lin died, Helen moved from Detroit to Bay City to be closer to my parents. She looked for a few years before she found someone to hand quilt the piece.

I don't know the identity of the quilter or how much Grandma paid, but I think she got her money's worth no matter what because it really is very fine quilting. It's hard for me to imagine putting all that work into hand quilting and then handing it back to its owner, no matter what I got paid.

This quilt is sized for a double bed. If we had a guest room, this would definitely be on rotation. But I don't envision a time when we'll have a double bed in the house, so for now we generally use this on the couch when Mom comes to visit overnight or on the futon downstairs on the rare occasions we have other overnight guests.

In fact, it's the only heirloom quilt I actually use because it is the only one that isn't pretty seriously damaged, probably because it is a more recent creation and has certainly never been washed. To my knowledge, Grandma never used it. I never saw it until after she died in the late 1990s. It's a shame that she worked so hard on it and paid to get it quilted and then put it in storage. If you're a quilter or a knitter or a crocheter, use your creations. It makes them happy to be used.


Helen and Linny