I’ve written before about my grandma and how she was a longtime quilter but, now that she’s in her 90s, unfortunately her eyes don’t allow her to quilt any more.  She still does a little bit of embroidery, but quilting for her is done and instead she’s happy to know that I like to quilt.

The good news is that before her eyesight became too poor to quilt, she finished a handful of quilt tops that have been stored away in a box in my parents’ house.   I finished one of those quilt tops back in 2013 (you can read about it here), and when I was home visiting my parents over the holidays I pulled out another one of the quilt tops to work on this year.  This one is appliqued butterflies.

I don’t have a full picture of the quilt because this one is large and in charge.  It measures approximately 78” x 86”.  Whoa!  I will have to clear some major floor space just to get this one basted.

My grandma liked to do a lot of applique but I’ve never made an applique quilt myself.  I have a couple of ideas for some modern applique designs I would like to try, but for now they’re just that…ideas.  I have too many other quilts I want to make that aren’t applique and they are my priority, so instead I’ll just finish this applique quilt my grandma made.

As someone who doesn’t applique, I’m a bit stumped right now on how to quilt this one.  There’s quite a bit of white space on the quilt that needs to be taken into consideration, but also what to do with those butterflies?  I think I’ll be doing a bit of research before I start in on quilting it.

Any applique quilters out there that want to weigh in on quilting it?  I’m taking suggestions!