Story quilt KY state fair 23

20 years after my Grandma Mimi, Gloria Gramig, became an Angel quiltress in heaven, I began my quilting journey. Of all 28 of my cousins, I was the only grandchild that took up quilting and sewing. My Mimi was a big seamstress, making lots of clothing for all 10 of her kids, and after she learned quilting, quilts for every member of our family. Mimi was a member of the Louisville Nimble Thimbles in the 1980’s and 90’s, and would even teach some classes. As I got further along and more skilled in my quilting journey, our family matriarch, my Aunt Theresa, began passing down my Mimi’s sewing things to me. Last thanksgiving, she gave me a Lowe’s yard bag filled with quilting hoops and “some other treasures your Mimi had saved for you”. There were rulers, cutting mats, notes, paper handouts from her tutorial classes, and some unfinished quilt blocks in her quintessential aplique with red flowers. She had been inspired by my great grandmother Leila Gramig and a quilt she had done in red flowers, and it became kind of a family tradition. For my remembrance quilt I used one of these unfinished quilt blocks, some of her old fabric, and her Bernina 1030 to finish her block into a wall hanging, her favorite type of quilt. Our family was always a gardening family, so to show my own style inspired by my Mimi’s style, I created aplique strawberries. This quilt isn’t technically perfect by any means, but it represents a relationship I never thought I would get to have with my Mimi. She passed when I was two, so I am only just getting to know her now through quilting, and I feel her guiding me into my own style and also as a family historian preserving her work and legacy.