In The Quilter’s Legacy, Eleanor’s superstitious mother-in-law believes that sleeping beneath the Ocean Waves quilt would cure one’s illnesses and relieve pain. Eleanor, who chose the pattern to represent the ocean that separated her rom her beloved husband serving overseas in World War I, did not share this belief, although she would occasionally pretend to do so to humor her mother-in-law. The pattern for “Eleanor’s Ocean Waves” appears in my second pattern book, Return to Elm Creek (C&T Publishing, 2004).
Machine pieced by Geraldine Neidenbach and Heather Neidenbach, machine quilted by Sue Vollbrecht, 2003. Harriet Hargraves’s “Vintage Indigoes” fabrics used in this quilt were generously donated by P&B Textiles.