My Great-Grandmother, Flora Texas Goad Rakes, was the first quilter that I ever knew and I remember seeing her sitting in her chair hand piecing blocks. Like all quilters, she left some UFO projects. My Mom and I got the tops and blocks and, over the years we have worked on them.
Flora Texas Goad Rakes 3/31/1885 – 6/9/1968), Galax and Fieldale, VA
Unfinished Tops
We started with 3 of her finished tops. I quilted them on my longarm using a Baptist Fan pattern because that’s what she always used for her hand quilting. All three of these quilts were given to family members, sister and cousins of my Mom.
Double Wedding Ring rings
She also left a box of arcs for a double wedding ring quilt. None of them really fit together for a double wedding ring….Mom tried. About the time she was working on them we had some new babies in the family so she decided to use them to make two baby quilts.
She used the rest of them to make veterans quilts.
Star Blocks
She also left 8 of these large stars.I have tried to piece them into large blocks but they really don’t lay flat and the centers are very bulky. I eventually found a solution.
I cut the star points to make this quilt back for a family baby quilt.
Remaking My Childhood Quilt
This was the quilt that she made for me when I was a child. It was on my bed until I left for college. I remade it using her sample blocks. You can read about it here.
Three Generations Quilt
This quilt was made from Broken Wheel blocks pieced by my Great Grandmother Flora Texas Goad Rakes. Mom made the quilt and I quilted it.
More Information about Flora and my Grandmother, Lura Rakes Dove
My only memory of Flora is seeing her at my Grandma Dove’s house sitting with her tin box of quilt pieces and hand sewing them together. I remember being a bit intimidated by her but fascinated by that box of quilt pieces. Her husband was a sharecropper died young (my Grandmother was about 13) and she raised her family in a small house in a “holler” near Galax, VA. This is the old family home as photographed in the 1960’s.
When I knew her she would split her year living in the winter with my Grandmother (Lura) and the summer in Galax with Lura’s twin sister, Lillian. One day in Galax she was sitting in her chair piecing, she stood up, lost her balance and fell. When they found her she was lying on the floor but still had her sewing pieces together! She died 2 weeks later in the hospital with a broken hip.
Lura (on the left) had 3 daughter and one son. Each daughter had 1 daughter. My Mother also had 3 sons. Lura passed away August 2004 at 95. This is my favorite photo of my Grandmother in the 1920’s.
