UFO ~ Garden Lattice Quilt Finish

My, how time flies! It’s been three weeks since my last post.   I’ve been keeping busy with all the usual summer yard work and quilting whenever I could find a moment. This past Sunday morning, the Garden Lattice quilt was finally bound and tossed into the washer.

This quilt top has been waiting for years to be finished. It was started in July 2012. The fabrics for the lattice part of this quilt were bought at Walmart around 2005 or 2006. The border fabric, a white on white from Joann’s, and was purchased around the same time. I kept putting off quilting it because I knew the cheap white on white fabric would probably cause skipped stitches....and I was right. I tried every size and type of needle, but nothing fixed the issue. It quilted beautifully on the other fabrics, so the skipped stitches will be part of this quilt’s story. 

It started at 64 x 86 before washing. After the wash, it shrank to 61 x 83...that's a lot of shrinkage! But it gave it the charming crinkle vintage vibe some quilters love. The photo shows the before and after, with a trusty safety pin left in place so you know you’re looking at the same spot. You’ll also notice the 100% machine attached binding.  Machine binding a quilt means I'm not in love with it and just want it finished.  

All of my quilt tops are stored with their backing fabric and binding fabrics. Most of the time they are pieced and ready to go but not always. I’ve learned the hard way to always double check the binding and backing lengths because I do make mistakes sometimes. This time, the binding was not only two widths of fabric pieces short, but it was also cut at an odd size....2.75"! What was I thinking? I don’t recall ever using anything wider than 2.5". Thankfully, I checked and had more than enough scraps stored with it to cut more at that unusual size.

The backing fabric was the scraps of the pink and blue fabrics in the quilt top. I hadn’t pieced them together for a backing, and it wasn't enough to cover even half the quilt. So, I dug into my yardage stash and found enough of one fabric to use instead. The pink and blue scraps will come in handy for the next quilt top I plan to quilt. It too was made from the same fabrics.

 I named this one Garden Lattice because I’m not sure if I designed it or used a pattern, so I just went with the first name that came to mind.

Remember when I said this quilt was going to be trouble? Well, the quilting gremlins must have heard me and decided to put on a show.  About halfway through, the needle bar thread guide assembly fell apart, leading to a jarring needle break. Thankfully, it didn’t leave a hole in the quilt or cause me to wet myself. After the initial shock, I couldn’t help but laugh and think just one more problem to add to the list.   Luckily, I had spare parts ready because this had happened years ago, and I’d smartly bought two “just in case.” Now I’ll be ordering two more…you know, just in case the gremlins come back for an encore.

After attaching the thread guide, the saga continued. The needle crash threw my machine out of time, and I couldn’t help but laugh at the mischievous little gremlin haunting this quilt top. It took about two hours, but I fixed the timing and sent those pesky gremlins on their way.  

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Spooly Scrumptious UFO Finish

My Spooly Scrumptious is finally a quilt after 13 years of waiting. Waiting on what? Me! For some reason, I felt this quilt deserved “special” quilting because I loved the Bonnie and Camille “Scrumptious” fabric so much.  Now for those of you who also love Bonnie and Camille fabric, you might notice a few Bonnie and Camille Marmalade fabrics in there as well.  The two fabric lines blend so well they are hard to spot.

When you spot crosshatching in the background of one of my quilts, you can pretty much guarantee I’m in full “let’s get it done” mode. My heart was all for taking this quilt to the next level with intricate, dense custom quilting, but my brain yelled, “GET REAL!” and ordered me to finish it ASAP.

Now that she’s finished, I love it just as much with the simple quilting. My original plan for this quilt was to make it a wall hanging, but it’s also the perfect size for a lap or baby quilt. Quilting it too heavily would have made it more likely to be used only as a wall hanging. Now, I or someone else has options.  

The backing and binding are made from leftover backing fabric of another quilt. I would have preferred a different fabric for the binding, but I didn’t have what I wanted in my stash, and there was plenty of the large dot so why not use it. I could have pulled the backing over to the front to bind the quilt, but I’m not a fan of that look. So, it was machine stitched to the front and hand sewn to the back.

And as always, a simple label was added to the backing before quilting. 

Even though my original vision for this quilt didn't happen she's still Truly Scrumptious to me.  The original post for the start of this quilt can be found here.

If you're curious about how I came up with the name Spooly Scrumptious, this clip from Chitty Chitty Bang Bang will clear things up.

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Labeling Grandma's Hand Quilted Quilt

After Grandma (my dad’s mom) passed in 2006, my mom brought home one of her quilts. It’s been sitting in her linen closet ever since, though she did take it out a couple of times because I wanted to see it, touch it, and give it a little love. When Mom passed in 2017, the quilt stayed tucked away, only coming out once until now...and that time was because of me again.

I treasure this quilt and want it to last and remain in the family. So, I brought it home for a little spa treatment and to add a label. The spa treatment is simply letting it lay flat for a while in the spare bedroom and spending a day in the sun. The sunshine helps nature air it out and gives it a gentle UV bath.

While the quilt is at the spa, let’s chat about how I make my quilt labels. I currently print them at home with an Eco Tank inkjet printer. The process is simple but takes a bit of time.

First, cut a 9 x WOF piece of white fabric, hand wash it, and let it air dry. Then treat it with Bubble Jet Set 2000 and allow it to air dry again. You can print on your own fabric without this product, but the print might wash out, especially if you’re using colors other than black ink.

Once the fabric is dry, I iron it and cut a 9 x 12 piece. The rest goes into my label-making kit box, aka a Ziploc bag. The 9 x 12 piece is then ironed onto a sheet of freezer paper and trimmed to match the paper’s size. I bought the C. Jenkins brand on Amazon a few years back, but it’s no longer made but other brands of printable freezer paper are available. A roll of kitchen freezer paper works too. Years ago I used it by cutting it to standard paper size, 8.5 x 11.

This week I had two quilts that needed labels, and to avoid wasting fabric, I decided to add one to an older quilt that didn’t have a label yet. After printing and letting them dry overnight, I handwashed them in Bubble Jet Rinse and let them air dry.  

I design my labels using a free program called Inkscape, which is similar to Adobe Illustrator but free to download and use. I learned to use it while creating quilt patterns to sell. Google Docs is another great free option for making labels, though it can only be used online.

After cutting the labels apart, I use templates made from freezer paper or heat resistant quilter’s template plastic to press the edges under with a little starch and a quick press. I keep these templates stored in my quilt label kit.

I use washable Elmer’s School Glue to secure them to the back of the quilt while stitching. For my newer quilts, I place the labels in the center of the quilt backing before quilting so they can’t be removed without taking out the quilting.  

Now that the label is in place, let’s take a closer look at Grandma’s quilt.

My grandma had only a 3rd grade education and was nearly illiterate, with handwriting and spelling that were hard to read. Still, she was a talented seamstress who made many of her family’s clothes. After her kids moved out, she got her first real job at a cabinet making factory, where she worked until retiring at 65. She began quilting in the 80s, without using a rotary cutter or patterns. In the late 90s, my dad gave her a couple of quilt books and a quilting hoop. I’m not sure if she could read the books, as some of the strict rules of quilting didn’t seem to appear in her work...more on that later.

This quilt is not perfect but it's gorgeous in my eyes.  The hand quilting blows me away because I can't hand quilt, well I can but it's not pretty.

The feathered wreath above was likely drawn using a template, or at least that’s my guess. As I examined the quilt, I noticed pencil marks she had cleverly tried to hide with the quilting.

The stitches aren’t the best, but they’re not the worst I’ve seen either. The hand quilting is better than mine, so to me, it’s gorgeous!

Nearly all the points are lost in this quilt, which makes me wonder if she knew about the 1/4" seam allowance in quilting. Since she was first a seamstress and then a quilter, I’d bet she used either a 3/8" or 5/8" seam allowance.

The binding is machine stitched to the back and then hand stitched to the front, which is the reverse of the usual method. As shown in the picture above, it’s too wide, and there are no mitered corners on either side. This suggests she cut and attached the binding one side at a time.

The back has a few clues and quirks. One of the first things I noticed was a small spot that might be blood. The only way to know for sure would be to put a little peroxide on it, but I’d rather not. I prefer to think it’s just something she left behind on the quilt while working. The arrows point to thread knots, which she apparently didn’t know to tuck into the fabric. There are two different kinds, the green arrow shows what looks like a hand tied knot, probably how she finished off the thread after quilting, while the red arrow points to the kind of knot you make by threading a needle, wrapping the thread around a finger, and rolling it between your fingers to form a knot.

The backing is made of two pieces of muslin and a narrow strip of pieced poly cotton at the very edge of the quilt. It seems she miscalculated and ended up short on backing. We’ve all been in that situation once or twice...well, I know I have.

Along the middle seam, there’s a strange red thread running the entire length. At first, I thought it might be a stray thread, but how could one go from the top of the quilt to the bottom? Maybe it’s part of the selvage? It feels thick, and I’m stumped. I could take apart a bit of the seam to find out, but it’s not worth the effort. Instead, I used a small crochet hook to pierce the fabric and try to grab the red thread. It’s attached, so I couldn’t pull it out, but I was able to reach the batting...it’s polyester. 

I enjoyed spending some quality time with Grandma's quilt. She'll be going back to Dad this week for safe keeping, but maybe one day she'll come home with me for good.

Quilt #2, the one Mom and I made together, needs a new label. The original is starting to fade since I didn’t use the Bubble Jet Set 2000.

More about this quilt can be found here.

Quilt #3 was my Pocketful of Starlight.

More about this quilt can be found here.

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Iris Finished ~ Another UFO Started

Every once in a while, we get to work on something truly special. This will be one of my most memorable projects because I had the chance to work out of my comfort zone and honor the unknown creator of the hand embroidered blocks and showcase her incredible craftsmanship.

Working with purple isn't easy for me.  When it comes to purple, I avoid it most of the time. The color purple only appears in my scrap quilts because I don’t really like it. In scrap quilts, purple is just another part of the rainbow, blending in nicely without stealing the spotlight. As you can imagine, there’s very little purple in my fabric stash. So, to make these gorgeous blocks shine, I had to buy some fabrics...and it was worth every penny.

While working on the quilt top, I considered giving hand quilting another try, thinking the unknown maker of the blocks might have preferred it. But after some thought, I realized the best way to honor her and make it the best it could be in my care was to stick with what I know and do well...machine quilting.

She put so much time and love into every stitch. I can’t help but feel a little sad knowing her family will never get to snuggle up with this quilt. All I can do now is make sure it’s cherished the way it truly deserves.

Even though I don't know her name I did my best to give her credit on the label.  I also gave it the name "Purple Passion".  Purple because of the color.  Passion, because it took her passion for handwork and my passion for quilting to get it to a finished quilt.

The last thing I did to honor the maker was to hand stitch the binding to the back.  Normally on quilts I plan to give away I 100% machine bind. 

A big thank you to Melissa, a new local quilting friend, who gave me the embroidered blocks.   For those of you who missed the original post about this quilt, below is how it looked.  

Melissa's mom gave it to her.  Her mom passed last year.  Her mom got them from a neighbor who has also passed, hence the Unknown Indianapolis Woman on the label.

The finish is bittersweet because I would love to keep it my quilt collection just because of all the handwork, but I know it's going to someone who will appreciate the handwork, the colors and the story behind its journey.

Now it's back to working on my own UFO's.  They too have gone unloved for far too long and they don't have any purple in them!

Next up on the frame...this one was started in 2013.  It's a small quilt so let's hope for a quick finish.

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