Pardon the pun, I couldn’t resist. I’ve been hand-sewing on the pineapple medallions that I crocheted. When I started thinking about the quilt for my great-grandmother Grace I asked for input from people from the family that had known her since she died before I was born. My cousin Joanne (Mary’s daughter) remembered her always crocheting and that one of the patterns she used to do a lot was the pineapple pattern. I looked on-line and found a pattern that I thought would work as a border for the quilt.

Finished pineapple medallion

I’ve done a fair bit of crocheting over the years but this was the first time that I had tried using crochet thread and the tiny needles that go along with it. It has required the use of reading glasses (I still don’t know how I got this old) and a bit of patience but I mastered it since I had long since learned the basics of crocheting from my mother.

One of the things that has kept me engaged with this project (in addition to providing the opportunity to dwell on the lives of the women in my family) is that it keeps delivering new challenges, techniques to learn and problems to solve.  I was a bit unsure how to go about attaching the medallions to the finished quilt. I decided that the simplest way to do this was to sew them on with white thread. The first one took a few tries but the subsequent ones have gone on easier.

Chimney Signature Quilt (for Grace)

Once I get them all attached I’m going to attach them to each other with crochet thread to make it a bit more stable and make it hang better (so the medallions won’t flop). And I’m leaning towards adding them to the top so I think I have some more crocheting to do.