Grandma’s Quilt (With Free Directions)

First posted March 12, 2019.

When my Grandma, Helen, died, she left behind a finished quilt top. I hadn’t even known it existed. No one else in the family seemed interested in it, fortunately, because I really wanted it. Grandma had stored it in a pillowcase, in a dark closet. That is probably why many of the colors are still as bright as new. It is in a pattern called “pointed tiles,” an all-over pattern, not set in blocks.

I remember Grandpa helping Grandma cut quilt patterns out of sandpaper at the kitchen table. As far as they were concerned, if you wanted to sew yourself a dress, there was always money for fabric, and many stores carried it. Grandma made us beautiful dresses, nightgowns (and a striped nightshirt for our brother), Barbie doll dresses with tiny snaps, and quilts, though she always tied hers. The dining room table, which was sometimes used as a ping pong table, would sometimes be covered by a quilt in a saw-horse frame. My brothers and sister and I spent a lot of time at Grandma’s, a hub of family activity. Grandma and Grandpa liked having us around. They made us feel like being a grandkid was special.

Grandma and my Great-Grandma Ada taught me how to do basic patchwork, embroidery, and applique when I was six. I was so proud of that. My first project was a little blue drawstring bag with a butter-yellow star which I appliqued on the front. My grandma made simple scrap quilts, tied, for each of us. Great-Grandma Ada’s were more elaborate. I especially loved her double wedding-ring quilt. It looked like winding roads to me. I remember sleeping under it when I was sick with the measles, at age six.

We grand-kids were a little afraid of Grandma Ada. She didn’t say much, or smile, and chances were, if she did say something, it was something like, “If I were you, Helen, I’d spank that child.” Yes, she was crabby, but when they went on vacation once a year, sometimes taking us grandkids along, she’d come to life and be a lot of fun. That makes me wonder how much being bored, feeling useless, and not being able to see as well as she used to had to do with her crabbiness. She’d had thirteen children. Nine survived infancy. She really knew how to sew! She could whip up a child’s pinafore dress in an hour, she said. She was known for her homemade divinity at Christmastime. She popped her popcorn with bacon grease–try it!

Grandma’s house was filled with beautiful embroidered dresser scarves and pillow cases, edged with crocheted lace. When did those women find the time? A little at a time, I suppose. It is always good to remember that house and the love in it.

I grew up fascinated by Grandma’s sewing paraphernalia, her cookie tins full of buttons, where you might also find a stray poker chip or Monopoly hotel, rolls of bias-cut fabric, and her pin cushions stuffed with coffee grounds. She always played with us, cards (to teach us our numbers, she said later), Charades, Hide the Thimble, Bunco, Dominoes. We would have tea parties with the child-size china tea set she had bought me, with the price, $1.00, marked indelibly on the box in black grease pencil. She would take us to the toy store, to get ideas what we liked, and after that, we’d get hamburgers or ice cream. At night, we would get in bed with Grandma and Grandpa to tell stories for awhile, before going to sleep in our own beds.

Judging from the fabrics she used, Grandma probably finished this quilt around 1970. I recognize fabrics from matching dresses and nightgowns she made my sister and me when I was ten and eleven, as well as a striped nightshirt for my younger brother. At ten, I favored small floral prints, while at eleven, I was asking for dark striped or paisley shirtdresses. There is one small brown floral print (over on the far right, in the middle) that looks exactly like the print in a lovely challis peasant dress my sister had as a teenager and later gave to me. Did my sister remember seeing that fabric in her childhood, to choose it again? They say that twins meeting for the first time have been known to be wearing identical dresses.

There is a bright, cheerful orange print that came from matching dresses my aunt made my sister and me one Christmas. I guess my sister never minded wearing the hand-me-down versions when she got them a few years later. She could probably feel the love in every stitch (See my poem “Hand-Me-Downs” at my Children’s Corner page at this website.).

For fifteen years, Grandma’s quilt top sat in the top of my closet, before I felt brave enough to tackle it. Before that, I had made one quilt, for my daughter and her husband when they married in 2014. I had quilted my daughter’s in a Gracie frame. That worked well, and I started Grandma’s that way, but then–wouldn’t you know it!–I had to move. I finished it on my lap with a hoop, while watching episodes of “Call the Midwife,” during the last few months of my daughter’s pregnancy with my granddaughter–my granddaughter! I have a granddaughter!

I wish I had known you were supposed to fill the bindings completely, but at least I knew to “pop the knots” to the inside. I mention this because at first I did not understand how important this is. The knots will wear away if you leave them on the surface. A Mennonite lady taught me that over the internet (Thank you, Lydia!) They easily “pop” into the batting, with a gentle tug (usually). Grandma’s quilt is not going to get a lot of wear; it is too much of a treasure. I think it is washing them wrong and sun exposure that wears them out, though, more than use.

I had used soft, blue-plaid homespun for the backing. I was going to replace Grandma’s aqua-colored border fabric. I thought it looked stretched and faded; but, once it was quilted, it looked fine. I brought the blue plaid homespun backing around to the front and hand-stitched it down as a second border. It is twin/full-sized. For the binding, I used (up) three prints in orange or pink/brown. The orange made a nice contrast against the blue plaid backing. As for battings, I had to try cotton, since Grandma’s quilt was special, but it was too hard to quilt. I switched to an 80/20 cotton/poly blend. Grandma most likely would have filled her quilts with an old blanket and tied them with crochet thread. I’ve heard size 10 is good for that.

Before I started quilting, I would look at pictures in books of beautiful hand-quilted items and think, that’s lovely, but why would anybody spend all that time? I found out why. Some have called quilting “meditative.” You just do a little every day, and in the end you have something beautiful and useful, made out of scraps, if you want. Not to mention, it’s a great way to stay warm in the winter, with a quilt you are working on across your lap! I like to think Grandma wanted me to have this quilt top.

Some things take time, and some take longer than others, but thank goodness for the gift of time! Here’s to you, Grandma, and to your love that showed in everything you did, every hand and heart you touched, every poor soul who talked to you like they had known you all your life when you had just met them. You took it in your stride with a smile. We knew we could always call you. When duties at a young age got to be too much, you would say, sit down and drink a glass of water, slowly. I hope I never forget all the things you taught me, Grandma. I hope I will be a good grandma to my little baby granddaughter. Maybe she will have this quilt some day. At this age, she’s probably more interested in the bunny.

Update 1/6/2020 on the “Pointed Tiles” pattern: Ann Wasserman, a quilter and quilt restorer who writes about quilts at Annquilts.com, posted about a lovely family heirloom quilt that was made in this same pattern, “pointed tiles,” in 2016. It’s interesting to compare these two quilts. See Ann’s post, “Heirloom Quilt with Family Photos and Some Flashy Peacocks,” Dec. 20, 2016, http://annquiltsblog.blogspot.com/search/label/pointed%20tile.

If anyone wants to try to make a quilt like Grandma’s, hers came to 74″ x 88″ before borders. She had added a 2″ border of aqua. I measured the pieces as best I could in a finished quilt, without having the templates. You would need to add l/4″ seam allowance on all sides. It is set on point.

Looking at it not on-point, though, the quilt has an overall pattern of a repeated 5-patch “cross unit” consisting of 4 pointed tiles and 5 squares arranged in checkerboard, except that one square is “shared” by an adjoining block. This “unit” does not make a square block; the “points” of the “pointed tiles” pieces stick out of the square. Maybe it is easiest to think of it as making a cross and an eight-pointed star, interlocking. You can see that many “8-patch square” units form, with 4 inner pointed patches meeting at the center in a “crossroads” and 4 square blocks, one on each corner, filling out the square. A nice enclosure is formed around it (a square with angled corners which gives it almost a rounded appearance) by four sides of “pointed tile–square–pointed tile” sequence. The join of 2 pointed tiles forms each angled corner. I saw this after I tried to draw the expanded pattern.

Of these “cross units,” there are 10 rows across and 12 rows down (For comparison, there is a similar, traditional “album” or “album cross” (various names, of course!) quilt pattern that is even called “Pointed Tiles” in one book (see sources below). However, it uses triangles where the outer squares are in the “pointed tiles” pattern. It makes a neat square block. It is often seen with sashing, sometimes diagonal. Sometimes the pointed piece is elongated rather than square-based. There would be a plain patch for signing. There is also a pattern called “X’s and O’s.” The “album block” is like the “X” in that block.

You can make all your squares plain, or all your pointed tiles, or mix them up. Grandma had a lot of plain squares, but not all. Likewise, she had a lot of print pointed tiles, but not all. The quilt depicted in Ann Wasserman’s blogpost has made color contrasts part of the design. Its colors are lovely, soft and faded, as you find in a quilt that has been loved and used. I am not sure whether Grandma had any plan to her use of plain and printed fabrics. Her colors are bright because this top was carefully stored in a dark closet, waiting for someone (me!) to come along who would love it and finish it.

These are the pieces you need:

Square: 2 l/2″. 384 pieces. (Possibly 2 l/4″ but not 2″). Maybe experiment with it.

“Pointed Tile”: 480 pieces. Use the same size square for the base (“house”) as you do for the regular squares. The “roof” slants up at 45 degrees. Each slant measures 1 3/4″.

Quilt Edge or “Side Piece” for Quilt’s Outer Edges: 40 (11 on each of 2 sides. 9 on each of the other 2 sides). 3″ on top, 5 3/4″ on bottom. The slant is 45 degrees on each side. The piece is 1″ tall (Some of Grandma’s were 3 l/2″ on top and 6 l/4″ on bottom, and her quilt still turned out great! The side pieces have to fill in the space at the edges, so I expect Grandma had to fudge at times.).

Corner Pieces: Each of the 4 corners is 2 pieces. They come together like a picture frame’s mitered corner. The first is 1 3/4″ on one side, 3 3/4″ on the other, angling from short side right top corner down to long side left of bottom piece 45 degrees. The second is 2 3/4″ on short side, 4 l/4″ on long side, angling from short side left down to right of bottom piece 45 degrees. The pieces are each 1″ tall and the non-angling side of each is straight. You could devise non-mitered corners, of course. Don’t forget to add seam allowances to all my measurements.

Vertically, with the 88″ (longer) side at the top, you will see an alternating pattern of one-patch “rows.” The pattern alternates between rows of pointed tiles and rows of squares. There are 24 rows of pointed tiles–all with 20 pieces–and 25 rows of squares: 13 rows with 10 squares and 12 rows with 21 squares. From an outer edge of the quilt, the pattern is: 10-square row, pointed tile row, 21-square row, pointed tile row, 10 square row, pointed tile row, etc., ending with a 10-square row.

I think this quilt pattern should not be too hard, once one gets the trick of how the larger units fit together. Grandma did quilting and patchwork, but only as it fit into her life. She was a home-maker, and her home was filled with love. She did most of the patchwork by hand, probably on her lap in the evenings. I don’t know where she got the pattern. I would love to see more quilts in this pattern and hear their histories. If you try this pattern, please let me know how it works out. Update 4-13-23: the pattern in the quilt in the cover of the Illinois edition of Quiltfolk magazine, issue 18 (2021) is the closest I have seen for a related pattern in a quilt. It is Mary Fons, editor-in-chief,’s 2013 quilt, “Little Black Dress.” The pieces look bigger, though, and Fons has added rectangular pieces on top of her pointed pieces. “Grandma’s Quilt” is made in a traditional tile pattern. This is the idea, with the “cross and eight-pointed star shapes.” The eight-pointed star is sometimes called the “Seal of Melchizedek.” See Alonzo L. Gaskill, “The Seal of Melchizedek?” Religious Educator, vol 11, no 3 (2010), Brigham Young University, https://rsc.byu.edu/vol-11-no-3-2010/seal-melchizedek.

Sources: “Pointed Tile,” in Barbara Brachman, Encyclopedia of Pieced Quilt Patterns (Paducah, KY: American Quilt Society, 1993), p. 420.

“Pointed Tile 8”, in Maggi McCormick Gordon, 1000 Great Quilt Blocks (Woodinville, WA: Martindale & Company, 2003), p. 64, no. 131. Note: This is what I’ve been calling the “album cross” with triangles instead of squares so that it forms a square block with the pointed pieces.

Linda Otto Lipsett, Remember Me: Women & Their Friendship Quilts (San Francisco: The Quilt Digest Press, 1985), pp. 70-81. Note: the lovely photographs are also of the “album” block made with triangles instead of squares.

Michele Walker, “Friendship Medley,” The Complete Book of Quiltmaking (New York: Knopf, 1986), pp. 46-47 (photograph of “album block,” top row, second from the right, p. 47. Also with triangles instead of squares).

Revised 11-24-23.