I finished my second UFO quilt this past week. I did a Disappearing Nine Patch out of my stash of five inch squares. I goofed in cutting a few spots, and sewed some of the patches in different orders so that the finished quilt had some seams which were flipped the wrong way. Nex time I will know what to watch for. The colors were dull on this one. Next time I will choose brighter, more coordinated pieces and sew them in random order, or go totally scrappy. (I saw a scrappy done with red as the center piece instead of black, and I liked it very much.) I ran out of fabric cutting borders because I did not pre-measure, so I did mix and match. I did not like that. I called it a practice quilt and donated it to Catholic Charities. I can come up with something nicer for St. Anthony's. After all, it is not as if I am out of fabric!
One more top to complete, but I have been sort of cheating by pressing and cutting the laundry basket of scraps (old clothes) which Mary gave me. Those fabrics are vintage, but because they are used, will go into something for Cathoic Charities, or for dolly blankets.
I purchased backs for some St. Anthony's quilts, so pieced those and cut and sewed binding. I was thinking that quilting is an awful lot of work by the time all of the piecing, quilting, and binding is finished. I cannot imagine the time it would take to do an entire quilt by hand, and with templates drawn on scraps instead of fabric cut with a rotary cutter. We are very spoiled today as compared to what our grandmothers had to do. The quilting ladies comment about how they used to have to quilt on both sides of a seam when they used wool batting, and how they had to periodically take the quilts apart, re-card the wool and then re-quilt them.
My mom said that at home they sewed a muslin strip along the top of the quilts to keep them clean. My aunt said that other than hanging the quilts outside and letting the rain run through them, they did not wash their quilts. Given the delicacy of used fabric, possibly hand-sewn, I can sure understand why. I would not relish the thought of having to hand wash and rinse a quilt in a bathtub, and then having to haul the wet thing somewhere to lay it out until it was dry. As Anne would say, "Wheeeew!".
Saturday, March 29, 2014
Friday, March 14, 2014
Mom's Quilt
Mom's quilt is finally finished. Now I can move on to other projects waiting for completion.
Mom started this quilt before she got married, so that puts it before 1942. She was never able to finish it. It sat in her bedroom closet for many years. our cat, Midnight, had kittens in the box of all of the pieces one year. My sister Diane took it out to finish it after she had done some of her own quilting. She and Janice sorted through the pieces. They had to toss a few. One of them finished the applique on a few pieces, and I finished some of the embroidery. Then they purchased material for sashing and borders. I started the hand quilting several years ago, but was unsure of how to procede after doing the sashing, so I set it aside. A couple of years ago one of my quilting friends gave me some hints as to how to complete it. We were able to present it to my mom this month on her 93rd birthday.
I have to say that when I did the embroidery, I was just learning how, and it looks awful. Same with the first quilting that I did. My stitches were toe catchers! If I had known then what I know now....My sister Janice, who has since had much more quilting experience, also says she would have chosen different batting. And of course, reproduction fabrics came out after Diane picked out fabric for sashing. It is difficult to match fabrics from one manufacturer to another, let alone to try to match colors from a different year, or colors on fabric which has aged, so it was a challenging project.
Mom's original work was very meticulous. The fabric pieces used for the applique have their own charm, as do the embroidery accents around the appliqued figures. I feel bad that we did not get a history of any of the fabrics while Mom was still able to remember. I am very glad that it is finished.
Mom started this quilt before she got married, so that puts it before 1942. She was never able to finish it. It sat in her bedroom closet for many years. our cat, Midnight, had kittens in the box of all of the pieces one year. My sister Diane took it out to finish it after she had done some of her own quilting. She and Janice sorted through the pieces. They had to toss a few. One of them finished the applique on a few pieces, and I finished some of the embroidery. Then they purchased material for sashing and borders. I started the hand quilting several years ago, but was unsure of how to procede after doing the sashing, so I set it aside. A couple of years ago one of my quilting friends gave me some hints as to how to complete it. We were able to present it to my mom this month on her 93rd birthday.
I have to say that when I did the embroidery, I was just learning how, and it looks awful. Same with the first quilting that I did. My stitches were toe catchers! If I had known then what I know now....My sister Janice, who has since had much more quilting experience, also says she would have chosen different batting. And of course, reproduction fabrics came out after Diane picked out fabric for sashing. It is difficult to match fabrics from one manufacturer to another, let alone to try to match colors from a different year, or colors on fabric which has aged, so it was a challenging project.
Mom's original work was very meticulous. The fabric pieces used for the applique have their own charm, as do the embroidery accents around the appliqued figures. I feel bad that we did not get a history of any of the fabrics while Mom was still able to remember. I am very glad that it is finished.
Stamping
I have been trying to use up all of my old paper from Stampin' Up so I can buy some of the new colors. I am finding that I like the simplicity of some of the newest stamps. Here are some of my creations.
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