After my mother passed away, I inherited all her fabric. Most of this quilt came from her old scraps, not large enough to make more than these squares. In this quilt, two complete squares were leftovers or rejects from previous projects (one I found fully formed in a bag of scraps that belonged to my cousin’s daughter’s teacher), both miraculously the exact right size. The embroidered flowers came off a blazer of my mom’s that was too small for me. The butterflies were made out of scraps of Chinese silk brought back from China by my great aunt when she lived there in the 1930s. The quilt also has leftover material from the curtains in my study, and upholstery fabric samples given to me by my aunt. The batting inside the quilt used to be the padding in an old couch we bought off Craig’s List. In the spirit of this old WWI quote, “Use it up, wear it out, make it do, or do without”, I did not purchase a single item to make this quilt.