Finished at Last!

Finished at last and slept under last night.  My Christmas gift to me, this Blockade Quilt, now officially out of the quilting hoop, all bound and about to have its label attached.

I had help stitching down the binding

Trying to find a place large enough to spread it out for photographing the entire quilt was impossible. It finished at 80 x 90 inches after washing - here it is on the guest bed where it will take up residence

This quilt came to me as a completed top, the seller had acquired it from the estate of an Ohio Mennonite lady who was a prolific quilter and had also owned a quilt shop for many years. The top is machine stitched, with fabrics primarily from the 1950-1960s era, although there are several fabrics that appear earlier than the others, the one below feels and looks like feedsack to me.

Some of the fabrics remind me of pajama prints from the 50s when I was very young, especially that blue print in the lower left corner of the following photo.

I spent nearly eight months hand quilting this vintage piece, working on it a little every day and finally finished the borders in a week-long marathon of stitching, pretty much abandoning all the other in-progress projects.

Border detail

Back is white muslin that shows quilting detail 

The mail brought a little package the other day, from an old friend on the west coast.  Inside was her Christmas card and this sweet little ornament!  Exquisitely detailed, constructed with five different wood species, and the machine has gold metallic thread 'threaded' through a tiny wood tension mechanism and wire thread guides.  The ornament is approximately two inches long and a little over an inch tall.   Love it!

A closer detail:

Today's agenda includes making a huge batch of pierogi for the holidays, then we really must get out the wrapping paper and ribbons and attack the mound of gifts piling up in the guest room.  Time's a'wasting, and we celebrate an early Christmas with my son and DIL and the three youngest grands on Wednesday.  The rest of the grands will arrive on Sunday for their Christmas in the country.  Busy happy times ahead.   To all of my blogging friends I wish a joyous and peaceful Christmas with friends and family.  

Finish!

Campfire Memories is officially finished, right down to the label added just before supper last night!

This was such a fun quilt to put together, so much scrappy goodness here, bringing back memories of nearly every quilt I've made over the past twenty or so years, blog giveaway winnings, yard-sale finds, plus other bits of fabric that found their way into the stash totes along the way.

Tried a few shots outside but the colors were a bit way too washed out in the late evening light and beyond my photoshop skills to bring back.  I'd planned to try again this morning but it's a chilly 48 degrees with heavy dew on the fields so we're going with my indoor shots from last evening.

A close-up of the quilting, all stitched on the Janome Horizon using the even-feed foot. Seemed to take forever with all the starts/stops in every corner to change direction, but I do love the star-effect in the sashings.  Each of the 4 inch string blocks was quilted in the ditch along the outer edge of the blocks, then the X patterns were quilted in each of the sashings and corner blocks.  The quilting may be a bit more visible in this next photo of the back.

Just enough quilting to hold the layers together but not lose that soft cuddly feeling when wrapping up in this one, which I plan to do - a lot - there's another New York winter coming in a few months after all!

I had originally planned on using Hobbs Polydown batting for this quilt, but grandson #2 was here while I was putting the top together, and asked me who the quilt was for.  When I told him it was staying at our house (for now) and it was called Campfire Memories, he immediately responded "so when we have campfires down by the creek in the summer I can take it out and stay warm with it." Umm, not if you want to live a long and happy life buddy!  Well.  That put an end to the thought of poly batting for this one.  Just in case someone does sneak it out of the house and next to a campfire, we went with Hobbs 80/20 cotton batting.  Just seemed like it would be a tiny bit safer.  Just in case.

The stats:  From a pattern in Fons & Porter's Love of Quilting magazine (July/August 2013) in which Marianne Fons based her quilt on an antique quilt she had seen; finished size 86x63 inches; string blocks pieced on Casey Jones, my go-to, all-time favorite piecing machine, a vintage 1950s black Singer 301a; machine quilted on the Janome Horizon; Aurifil 50 wt. thread used throughout; Hobbs 80/20 cotton batting.

Today I'll need to knuckle-down and weed the veggie garden (again) and probably mow the lawn (sigh) though I'd really rather be prepping appliques for some evening sewing.  Maybe tomorrow ...

A Grandma's Love

Earlier this year my DIL brought a little box of fabrics and asked if I would consider finishing a quilt her mom had started for our mutual youngest grandson just before she passed away a few months after he was born.  Her mom had only been able to complete the four center blocks before she became too ill to continue sewing.  The pattern was also in the box, called Starring Kitties! from the February/March 2012 issue of McCalls Quick Quilts.  Her mom had intuitively chosen trucks, cars and airplane fabrics for her quilt - a perfect choice for this little guy who is infatuated with all wheeled vehicles!  She also had a wide array of small cuts of coordinating fabrics that we thought she had planned to piece for the back.

My DIL envisioned this quilt to be used more as a play mat for my grandson to play with his matchbox cars and be able to drag around the house, so we chose a flat Hobbs 80/20 cotton batting, and after completing the sashings and borders, and piecing a back, I machine quilted it in a meandering pattern.  Here is the finished quilt, completed earlier this week.  A Grandma's Love created this quilt for our sweet young love-bug, so that is what I've named it, and I hope it is close to what his other grandma had envisioned for our little guy when she started her quilt.

Using the cuts of fabric she had chosen, I pieced a backing of 6 inch squares, and though the Janome occasionally protested quilting over all those seams especially when seams met up on both front and back, the simple meander quilting went quite well.

a closer view of the simple meandering:

A label is now stitched onto the back containing a photo of his grandma holding him the last time she saw him, together with their names and the date.  Now it just awaits our next trip to the city and he will have his new quilt.

My last post before the Bloggers Quilt Festival was of this baby quilt, nearly finished with the FMQ. This one is also completed and has been gifted to a sweet baby boy now two months old already.  My camera did not do this little quilt justice, it's really much nicer seen in person, but this was the best I could do.

close-up of the quilting

and the back

Yesterday, DH and I attended the Genesee Valley QuiltFest, held in Rochester, one of the largest quilt shows in New York, with over 600 quilts on display.  It was a fabulous show, and the next couple blog posts I'll show some of the highlights and our favorite quilts.

Some much needed rain last night and looking threatening this morning, so with luck this will be a quilting day!  Have a lovely weekend!