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.  

Pin It