How the GFG was finished

The previous post was more a biography of my grandmother than an exposition of my latest (and greatest ever) finished quilt, my GFG. Here are those details.

The quilting was finished by stitching in my "happy toes" pattern on the sides. The binding for the flower border was a pieced binding using scraps from the flower fabrics. The ends were finished with a knife edge binding, which was the trickiest part for me.
I debated whether I should use orange hexagons, or green ones on the back. I chose the green, because they bring a part of the front back to the reverse side. I made a few more hexagons, and simply stitched them to the front hexies after trimming back the orange and batting a little. Then I appliqued the open edges to the orange fabric. Easy peasy.
I love the knife edge binding. It feels great and special. But if I had to choose, I think the pieced binding attached to the flower border is the prettiest part of the quilt.

Thanks, Grandma, This One's for You

Gertrude Alice Borders had a hard life, but made the best of it. Her mother died when she was born, and her father's hands were so crippled, he couldn't comb her very curly hair, so he kept it cut so short, one could hardly tell she was a girl. Her older brother was the light of her life, but he died in the great flu epidemic of 1918, when Gertrude was just 9 years old.
She met and married Charlie Cole, who brought stability and humor to her life. At the birth of their first child, Virginia Lee, (at home of course - there was no question of going to a hospital for an iceman's family), the mother-in-law came over from next door to help. Gertrude and Charlie lived in a tar-paper wooden frame house, next to Charlie's parents. Astonishingly, right after the birth, everyone went back to the in-laws' house for a drink (of tea, they were teetotalers). Gertrude had to get up that evening and cook dinner.
Mary Joyce followed Virginia Lee by a couple of years, and Charlie's brother had two boys of his own. When Mary Joyce was about 2 1/2 years old, the 1937 Flood invaded Louisville, Kentucky, as well as Clarksville, Indiana, where the Coles lived. They lost everything, and their house was torn off its foundation and flipped 3 times over, finally landing a quarter mile down the street. The Red Cross, contrary to its work today, came to this impoverished neighborhood, but only to SELL the desperately needed basics of life.
After rebuilding and making most of their own furniture, life stabilized. Charlie's brother's wife died, and Gertrude found herself taking care of Willie's boys, David Rae and Norman Lee. Charlie settled into a janitor's job at the local schools, and the girls grew up.
Both girls' first marriages failed in the 1950s, both because of domestic abuse. Both girls moved back home, Virginia living with her grandparents next door, and pregnant Joyce lived in the "little bedroom"
with her son Cole, already 2 years old. The little bedroom was just large enough for a single bed.
Life went on for a few decades, and Gertrude and Charlie finally retired. The janitor's pension helped until Charlie died in 1987, and Gertrude lived on Social Security for the rest of her life.
In 1997, almost 60 years to the day of the 1937 Flood, another flood came through and destroyed her house again. Not in the same way, because a floodwall had been built that protected the area in 1997. However, poor city planning had put a large parking lot behind Gertrude's house, and runoff from the rain destroyed her basement. She lost everything again.
Gertrude made quilts throughout her life, because blankets and comforters were not in the budget. Crazy quilts and simple quilts were the main designs, but the last quilt Gertrude made was a double wedding ring for her eldest granddaughter, Mary Alice. Quilts not lost in floods were worn out, eventually being thrown away. Gertrude died in 1999.
Grandma, I quilt today because of the example you set. This flower garden quilt is for you, because you gave me hope and persistence when I had none. Each of these hand-stitched seams have your memory stitched in.
Thank you, and I love you and miss you still.

GFG Motif Chosen

After some time spent with PowerPoint, I came up with the following pattern for quilting the edge of my Grandmother's Flower Garden. And it's working well. Once I figured out how to get the chalk onto the fabric I found out it goes pretty fast. And the quilting goes faster than I thought.
This pattern has multiple loops, but I'm just quilting the outer loop first. Then I'll decide if I want to do the inner loops. When I noticed that the outer loops went fast, I began to get itchy about finishing the quilt. Maybe the outer loops will be enough, and I'll be satisfied. Or maybe I need to do the inner ones too.
But once those are done, then I only need to do the binding. Oooh, that makes my toes curl up in happiness when I think of having this quilt finished!

GFG edge quilt motif design

My GFG is progressing nicely, I've just finished the quilting of the flowers themselves. But how to quilt the edge? I don't yet have an idea, but tonight I'm going to start sketching some possibilities.
This graph paper will come in handy. I printed it out  from Incompetech, and colored in the areas that are available to be quilted. Let's see what I finally decide.
The cross-hatched area is already quilted, and I've shown about half of each side. 
Your suggestions are very welcome.

Quilt, quilt, quilt

There are 13 large flowers and 8 small flowers in my quilt, and I've quilted 6 large and 2 small flowers so far. My pattern is to put a large hexagon inside each row of the large flowers, then quilt 1/4 inch away from flower in the green path. When that's all done, I'll still have to figure out what I'll do with the rest of the green area, and the border.
But even the quilting is dragging me down a little. The further I progress, the less I like the way I'm quilting. Because I'm doing it freehand, each of the little stitch variations and slight dimples is bothering me. I probably need to take a break and appreciate the work I've done so far. This is the quilt I wanted to make, remembering with love the way my grandmother made her quilts. No quilt frame, no rotary cutter, no fancy tools, just scissors, old fabric and love.
My flower garden is for me, with all of its warts, wrinkles and uneven stitching. My humanity comes through, my imperfections, my striving for a level I cannot yet reach. At the same time, though, I love them all, because this is the single most beautiful thing I ever created by myself. (My daughter doesn't count, because she's the product of DH and me together. That said, she's the most beautiful thing we've ever created.)
OK, maybe I'm not so dragged down anymore.

The back of my GFG

My Grandmother's Flower Garden (GFG) quilt is my pride and joy. It's completely hand-pieced and I'm hand quilting it now. The reason I made it is to honor my grandmother, Gertrude Alice Borders Cole, who taught me my first quilting stitches. She made all of her quilts by hand, with templates rather than paper piecing, never using a quilt frame. She made at least one crazy quilt, which I wore to pieces, a double wedding ring, a bowtie, a flower garden, and more. Many quilts were made using her old dresses, as we had nothing to waste.
I pieced my top with just over 1000 pieces, and it went quite quickly. When it came to the backing, I wanted something modern, with plenty of color. Kaffe Fassett Roman Glass fit the bill, even though I'd never in my life deliberately chosen orange for anything.
Here are some pictures of the quilt in progress. I'm quilting it by straight lines through the flowers, making giant hexagon shapes, and doing a traditional path border in the green. Now that the weather has cooled off a bit here in Germany, I can actually stand to have it on my lap and work on it.