DH's descendents came from Germany. The first one to come across the Atlantic was Henrich Stief with his wife and they had seven sons. The quilt is made up of seven colours representing each son and these colours were picked in 1966 when the descendents had a reunion in Hillsborough, New Brunswick. Each person would wear the coloured ribbon representing the son they came from. The ship's sails are shaped as a 7 for seven sons, S for Steeves (Stief was changed along the way to Steeves) and F for family. On each block, I embroidered the ship and the name of the right son for that colour. DH's family comes from Frederick which is yellow and that is why the two yellow blocks are placed in the middle row. The middle block, I used the seven colours to make up a scene. Then on the yellow border, I started at the top and embroidered DH's family tree all around the quilt ending up with DD's and her husband name last. The back of the quilt is done in yellow and I hand quilted in black thread. DH helped with the design and the spacing of the descendents around in the yellow border.
This quilt took me a couple of years to do in my free time. However, it is now an heirloom for DH and someday for DD.
Today, is catch-up day as far as washing and cleaning. We celebrated our Thanksgiving on Saturday with DD and her hubby, then again, on Sunday with my brother and his wife.
Happy Thanksgiving to all!
7 comments:
Oh wow that is just wonderful,Well done on all your hard work!!
Truly a fabulous Heirloom!!
That is a gorgeous gift for both you DH and DD.
You know what I think of the color combination they picked ;o) You are left with little to work with. LOL! You did a fabulous job though and there's a lot of work put into this.
That is such a wonderful story attached to the quilt! You have done a marvelous job with it! I am in the US and my mother embroidered the state bird for each ot he 50 states onto quilt blocks and then quilted it. It is a priceless heirloom to me.
Suzanne
what a wonderful idea , something to be treasured
What a wonderful idea and a wonderful quilt! As a non-sewing person (I love fabric, but my sewing machine scares me!)I am in awe of what can be accomplished with fabric, thread, talent, and lot of patience.
I did not realize that Canada celebrated Thanksgiving. Is it linked to a specific historic happening, as ours in the US is?
Wow! I was researching Frederick Steeves' descendants as I too am a descendant like your DH! I came across your site while looking to see if there were regular reunions just for fun. Your quilt & colors are wonderful! Please tell your DH he has distant cousins (??) in CT, MA and SC! I am working on family tree with ancestory.com. I just finished reading "the Search for Heinrich Stief." this is new to me - so fascinating how many generations and relatives are out there. I would love to go to a reunion if any more are ever organized but I'm certain I would not hear about it. You do not need to add my post and can delete this last part- I do hope you'll keep my email should you ever hear of another reunion. Gutchfamily @ yahoo. com (spaces to help avoid spam)
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