Happy 80th Birthday, Mama - the Kimono quilt

I made this "photo album" quilt for my mother for her 80th Birthday. It depicts three generations. In the top left is her oldest sister; Mom as a young woman is at the center top, with her parents on the right hand side.

Mom worked in Japan in 1946-47 and fell in love with the country, the culture and its people, so I selected a Japanese-style fabric and the kimono theme for the quilt. In the center, you can see my mom, dad and me (as a kid), then my mom's siblings as adults with her and finally, at the bottom, the youngest generation including my sons (the youngest was only a couple months old when I made this). Each generation has one "framed" (3-D) picture of the entire family.

This quilt was juried into the 2003 I Remember Mama Exhibit at the International Quilt Festival in Houston and was selected by Bernina as one of ten quilts in the exhibit to show on their website coverage of the 2003 exhibit.

Size:  44 x 60 inches; completed in 1998.
In the collection of Sarah's mom.

Exhibited in the I Remember Mama exhibit, International Quilt Festival, Houston, 2003; the International Quilt Festival, Chicago, 2004, and Patchwork and Quilt Expo IX , The Hague, The Netherlands, 2004.

Published as the opening quilt for the 2003 section of the book I Remember Mama by Karey Patterson Bresenhan.