Quilter pieces together family and fabric
Nancy Khoury created quilts for her five grandchildren that include fabric from five generations of family. The quilts are Christmas presents for her grandchildren. (Heidi Desch/Whitefish Pilot)
Nancy Khoury sewed fabric from her wedding dress into the quilts. (Heidi Desch/Whitefish Pilot)
Nancy Khoury points out the detail that was created in fabric from her grandmother and aunt. The sheets and pillowcases with embroidery and crocheting was incorporated into the quilts. (Heidi Desch/Whitefish Pilot)
Grandmother Nancy Khoury has pieced together a gift of family history in fabric that she plans to give to her grandchildren this Christmas.
Khoury has crocheted blankets of soft yarn and sewn quilts with fuzzy fabric for her five grandchildren as they’ve grown. Much in the same way she did for her four now-grown children from the time they were infants.
“I love sewing,” she said while sitting in her home outside Whitefish. “I don’t make fancy ones, I make basic quilts.”
“They sleep in them and snuggle up,” she says of her grandchildren using the quilts she’s made in the past.
So this year, she started thinking about what she could make out of fabric that had been tucked away inside trunks at her home. She pulled out sheets with crocheted edging and embellishments crafted by her grandmother and aunt, and then she dug around to find her own children’s baby blankets. She grabbed leftover fabric from previous projects for her grandchildren.
“I got it out and I realized it still wasn’t enough,” she said.
Through digging in antique trunks and spreading out the fabric around her the island kitchen, an idea began to form.
“I realized I had material from my grandmother, aunt and my kids, but the generation that was missing was me,” she said. “So I got out my old wedding dress and took the bottom panel off of it so each quilt could have a piece of my wedding dress.”
Khoury had found a way to sew together five generations of family and fabric into the quilts.
Through 6- and 12-inch blocks of fabric she was able to illustrate a multi-generational story bound together in queen-size quilts that her grandchildren will be able to use to stay warm.
Picking up one of the quilts, she points to a blue fabric that was part of her son’s baby blanket and a yellow dot of fabric that was from her daughter’s snow suit. In another square is a sheet with pink embroidery and in one corner of the quilt is white fabric with eyelets from the wedding dress.
Though her children and grandchildren know she has been working on the project, they won’t see the finished quilts until Christmas when they open their gifts.
“I want them to be able to point to the blocks and say ‘whose is this,’” Khoury said. “My children haven’t even seen the fabric that came from my mother and I think they’ll enjoy seeing it.”
Khoury and her husband Dan moved here eight years ago from Michigan to be near their grandchildren, who are now ages 7, 9, 9, 12 and 14. A hallway in her home is lined with photographs she has taken of the grandchildren and when everyone gathers on holidays she brings out a craft for adults and children to do together.
Khoury says her grandmother and aunt were skilled at embroidery and crochet, and her mother was a talented seamstress. She recalls sewing two quilts from work handkerchiefs when she and her husband were still dating — they’ve been married 42 years now — the quilts remained on beds in their home for years and eventually went to their son who still has them.
“I love sewing, crocheting and knitting,” she said. “I call it my tranquilizer. It’s how I relax and get my mind off things.”