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.  

Around and Around in Circles

Circles everywhere!  Four days into Quilty 365 and so far keeping up.

Quilty 365 - First Four!

Liking the pink and brown combos a lot, so there will be more of them scattered around this eventual quilt.  The pink and brown designs are from an old partial panel from a scrap bag of yard sale fabrics.
And, I know there will soon be days when no sewing is accomplished, so I've cut a few circles ahead from a couple different scraps and have them pinned on the design wall ready and waiting for any opportunity to work on them.

 Next batch of circles to be appliqued

The key to success in this project for me is going to be to not get very far behind.

And, I lied.  I said there would be no additional photos of The Blockade quilt until it is finished. After hand quilting on this queen size monster over the summer, the blocks are finally all quilted; and as I laid it out on the cutting table to repin the borders, couldn't resist a few photos.

My retro quilt - The Blockade

The quilt top was purchased several years ago on eBay, it came from the estate of an Ohio Mennonite lady who was a prolific quilter in her time.  This top came with the border quilting designs already pencilled onto the white muslin.  The blocks were made with a mix of mid-century fabrics, with a few older pieces likely from the 1930s or early 1940s.
I was able to complete one hoopful of the border design last evening.

Hoping I can get by with just quilting the border as drawn and that it won't demand additional background quilting.  I'm using Hobbs Polydown batting which according to one source can be quilted as far apart as six inches.  None of the spaces are that large, so we'll just have to make a judgment call after all the border design is quilted.  We're in need of an additional quilt on the guest bed for winter and I'd like to have this one completed before the Christmas holidays if possible.  And there's white stuff falling from the sky intermittently with possible accumulation later tonight, so an extra quilt is going to be very welcome, very soon!

Blockade Quilt update, and taking stock

Ever feel like your hand quilting is weighing you down?

Who, me?

Yep, she's the reason I'm often found reading blogs or writing posts, or even stitching at all hours of the night.  Our 18-year old kitty who only recently found her voice and isn't afraid to use it, especially at night ... sigh ...  She's also a quilt-hog!

The hand quilting on the Blockade quilt is going much slower than I'd like, early morning hours notwithstanding.  But we are progressing, however slowly, and the blocks are now about 2/3 quilted. So looking forward to getting on to the borders where the quilting will should go a bit more quickly, hopefully with way less rotations of the hoop.

Curiosity got the best of me the other day and I decided to attempt a listing of every quilt I've made or worked on since starting my first quilt some 35+ years ago.  Mind you, there were years that went by with nary a quilt in progress, in fact the vast majority of completions have been in the last five or six years, most since I retired.  But, I was happily surprised at the following tally:
   Quilts completed entirely by me (includes wall quilts, but majority are crib or bed quilts:  47
   Group quilts participated in:  5
   Vintage tops made by others, quilted by me:  3 to date
   Quilts in progress:  4 (soon to be 5, fabrics for the next one awaiting their turn on the cutting/work table)
Many, but not all of my completed quilts are shown in the various page links found just above the header photo.

Big family gathering heading our way tomorrow for a couple days, followed by some dear friends from Oregon, then another family visit the first week in August.  Adding to the mix a family emergency that will require a big chunk of time over the next few weeks, and quilting and blog time will be mostly curtailed for the time being.  Life is always full of surprises it seems.