Finishing Betty's quilt

 Hello everyone, and welcome to a spring weekend! It is, right now, at 7 am on Friday, 63 degrees. Also, quite humid, but we can overlook that for now in favor of happy dancing over the warm temperatures, right? An hour ago it was raining, but now all of that has burned off and it looks super-nice out there. Quite windy, but warm.

 

A couple of weeks ago, Preeti came over and visited for a little bit, and she saw today's quilt pinned up on the design wall. "That was here last time," she said. (Then she made off with a bag of my scraps, but that's a different story.) She was right, and it was time to get this baby quilted up. This one was hard to photograph, but here she is:

 

 

See what I mean about hard to photograph? The colors weren't cooperating. This quilt belongs to my sister-in-law, Susie. Susie's mom passed away from Alzheimer's disease, which she had suffered from for years. Carol was a quilter, and when cleaning out the house, Susie found this quilt in a bag, all basted and ready to quilt. The daughter and granddaughter of quilters, she knew just what it was and sent it on to me to finish. 

 

 

When I looked at it, the quilt was very nicely and securely basted (with red thread!), but it had polyester batting. I hated taking out the basting, but I knew the quilt would last longer and look better if I took out that basting and replaced the polyester with cotton. I'm all for honoring the original intent of the quilter, but I'm not for using inferior materials. It turned out to be a good decision, because this really turned out to be quite cuddly!

 

I also discovered this on the back:

 

 

The quilt was not made by Susie's mom, but by her grandma, who also died from Alzheimer's. I imagine this was one of the last quilts she basted, since she passed away shortly after this. Perhaps that's why it didn't get finished-- it was just too emotional to complete.

 

I kind of bonded with Betty while finishing her quilt. I must have met her at my brother's wedding, though I can't remember. Weddings are like that, you know? The embroidery here is very neat, with no stray threads, and the seams are just about perfect. Everything was pressed and trimmed very nicely, much better than I usually do it. Also, she made some design choices that I understood. Take a look at these pictures:

 

 

On the left is the inside of the quilt back, and on the right is the outside. It's subtle, but if you look closely you can see that Betty used the back of the pink fabric in the quilt. This is also true in the pieced top. The fabric must have been the "wrong" pink for her, so she used the back to get the right color.

 

 

Also, she chose to use the border fabric on the back and front as the binding, which was also packaged with the quilt. (True fact: I calculated that I needed 260 inches of binding, and there were 265 inches in the bag.)  The binding nearly disappears into the borders. I might not have done this, but it's interesting on her quilt.

 

To quilt this one, I used a fairly wide (3-5/8 inches) crosshatch in a parchment-colored thread which blended right into the quilt. Really, you can barely see it. I thought that Betty had probably intended to hand quilt this, and I could have done the stitch-in-the-ditch thing, but this secured the embroidered blocks and kept the quilt nice and cuddly. It was tough to stitch over that embroidery, believe me, but I closed my eyes and did it. I marked the lines with a Hera marker, and there are a few wobbles where the line was not easy to see, but overall, I like how it turned out. 

 

The backing was pieced and likely meant as borders on the back, and to use up the fabric, so I matched the centers to get it lined up properly. I think it turned out well, and fairly even on each side, and I love the picture above because of the shadows. The sun was in and out while I was taking these, and this time it made an interesting photo.

So, after all this time, Betty's quilt is finally finished. I've sent it back to Susie with the suggestion that she save it for a grandchild. Wouldn't that be amazing, to have a grandbaby using great-great-grandma's quilt? Just the idea makes me happy that this is done. 

 

 

Next time Preeti comes to visit, there will be something else up on the design wall and she can kick me in the pants to get that one finished, too. (Such a motivator!) I have a couple of things I'm still working on quietly, and I'm starting to feel more like myself. The sunshine really helps! And look what I found while photographing this quilt:

 

 

Flowers! My heart sings!

Hope everyone has a really good weekend. We might-- might-- go to a restaurant. The hubs and I have both been vaccinated and are now past the two weeks that you need after that to be safe, so maybe a little bit of normal life is in order. Whatever you're doing, I hope there's some spring sunshine in it for you!

Sharing at Finished or Not Friday, Confessions of a Fabric Addict, and Brag About Your Beauties.