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.

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.

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

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

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

Stains from something...

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

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.

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.

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

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.

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

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

I used an unbleached muslin for the backing. 

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. 

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.

Offset Diamonds

A couple of months ago, I was cruising Pinterest .... looking at quilts. and I found this lovely..  I decided to make mine with selvages, since I have  plenty of them. I started piecing June 26, 2019. I didn't work on it every day, but made a few blocks here and there. Last week I decided to finish it up.

I cut my blocks to 8"...it is a square quilt and is about 70" square. I think it is very cool. If I can remember, I'll put a blue binding on it after quilting, as the original shows.

The blue blocks went the quickest since there were only a few of them.

I worked row by row and got it finished last night.

I was wondering if I would run out of white selvages, but I made it ok.

I like the simplicity of it and that the blue is offset from the center. Now it has to marinade in the to-be-quilted cabinet.....if it will fit. It's pretty crowded in there. haha