Friday, August 16, 2019

Wedding Quilt

A dear friend has a daughter who is getting married in October. She wants to give her a quilt that was pieced by my friend's grandmother. The grandma brought home fabric scraps and pieced this top. Poor grandma was not a good piecer. haha   This is what I've been fighting.

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Seams that were not pressed out before stitching. they are folded over...and see the stitches coming apart....they are all caught in the seams, so I couldn't straighten them out. I just sewed over the fabric rather than in the ditch...I figure that helped hold the bad piecing together, too.

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And some blocks are pieced....can you tell they are not square?

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This is how her seams go....check that bottom right corner on the blue....i fixed many seams that were coming apart.

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And then there are these....holes in several blocks....i fused fabric to the backs.

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Stains from something...

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More stains...or dirt....or ??

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But, my friend is aware of all this and says to just do what I can. She has had the quilt top for about 14 years, since her grandma died....and grandma had quit working for many years....so the top is at least 30 years old now. Her daughter will cherish it and that is all that counts.

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That last red row was also "squares" but was so wonky that I couldn't bind it like that. As it is, parts of it are a bit wavy because of the way it lined up when I trimmed the edges. I used a light gray for the binding and made it a bit wider to be sure and cover the issues.

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I put a different design in each round and tried to match the thread color to the fabrics.

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There was no stitching in the ditch here....most times I had to stitch over the fabric in the seams. I feel the more quilting on this one, the better. along with poor piecing, she never backstitched to tie off the ends.  sigh!! There might not be a true square in the whole quilt.

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There are creases and wrinkles and god knows what else, but it is quilted as best as I could.

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Most of these fabrics were a bit shiny....some more than others.

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I used an unbleached muslin for the backing. 

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I used 12 different threads for the top...Glide...Key Lime, Lt. Orange, Pale orange, Tabriz Orchid, Cotton Candy, Chestnut, Lt. Olive, Celery, Sand, Ruby; Bottom Line Cream and So Fine Brown. the bobbin was So Fine Off White.  It is 68x84"....and took 13 bobbins. 

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She brought me another quilt that grandma has pieced also....this one made of bright velour fabrics. hahahahaha  I'll tackle that one next month.

1 comment:

Preeti said...

It is like you adopted a battered, bruised, hungry, thirsty, impoverished, mangy, little puppy and nursed him back to health. You loved him and fed him and nurtured him. Now he is the winner of the dog show. I LOVE what you have done with such a flawed piece and turned it into a masterpiece. Kudos to you!!! You just turned a useless flimsy into an heirloom to be cherished forever.

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