When I was married, my grandmother gave me a quilt made of fabric my great-grandmother had saved for her great-granddaughters’ wedding presents. The fabric was brown and red with geese and roses studding the border. In truth, when I first received it, I thought the blanket was quite ugly. But I thought the fact that my grandmother had saved the fabric and continued her mother’s project was remarkable. I don’t have many memories of my great-grandmother, but I do recall that she always seemed frail, yet somehow also powerful and arresting. She was an artist. Several of her paintings hang in my parent’s house. She was curious and creative, vivacious…