Bloggers Quilt Festival Time!

It's time for the annual spring romp through quilters sewing rooms courtesy of Amy at Amy's Creative Side who hosts this fabulous party each year!  Thanks Amy, both for the tremendous effort in making all this possible and also for including my favorite category - hand quilted quilts!

My entry this time has a story to go with it.  A few years ago I attended a small local yard/estate sale in the community where I worked.  After loading my arms with a bundle of lovely vintage linens, I spotted a plastic zippered bag on the ground under a table, the kind of bag new blankets and other bed linens come in from the store.  All I could see in the bag was a bundle of muslin and a bit of what looked to be a colorful vintage fabric.  And this tag:

Well.  That bag was coming with me!  On the way out of the sale, I was chided a bit by a co-worker who happened to be there for hauling away 'that old thing.'   That old thing happened to be this:

Hand basted with quilting just begun, these gorgeous vintage bow-tie blocks all hand pieced, with a heavy polyester batting and a one-piece muslin backing!  At the time I was unaware that the yard sale was at the home of the widower of a lady who had previously worked in my office, who had passed away shortly before I began working there.  I think this quilt may have been one she started as a young lady and had never finished.  It was destiny that I was to finish it for her.
I worked on this off and on between other projects and completed it just before moving back to the east coast late last summer.  Here is the finished quilt:

And some of my favorite fabrics from the bow-tie blocks:

 The whole quilt:

I love the finished quilt, the fabrics washed beautifully after it was completed, the bow-tie background fabric, a heavy cotton vintage tablecloth-type fabric, whitened considerably, making the bow-ties pop wonderfully.  

Thanks for visiting, and good luck in finding your very own vintage yard sale treasure!