Fast forward.  I completed the required number of blocks and put them up on my design board to see if there were any shocking mistakes.

Then I joined the diagonal rows together. . . it’s starting to take some shape.

Half the quilt is joined together. It’s starting to look like something!

Now I’ve joined the rows together and added the setting triangles along the edges.  I’m really liking this now.  I was a little unsure up to this point.

Now, after much deliberation, a border goes on. . .Oh, did you want to see the back side?  I split open all the four patches and 9 patches to make everything flatter. This is the “before” the final press.  There was a substantial amount of fraying going on, but that is to be expected with homespuns.

And here it is quilted.  I LOVE it!  It is king sized, so it will take me about 4-5 hours to bind it, machine sewn on front, hand sewn on the back.  I did a free motion stipple with occasional loops.  It suits the busyness of the top perfectly.  Oh, did I mention there are over 3,500 pieces in this quilt?  Oh, did I mention the squares in the nine patch are 1″? Oh, did I mention that it was started 2-3 years ago?   Oh, did I mention it is due at the San Diego Fair on Tuesday? I’m signing off now to go do hand stitching!

Here is a close up of the work.  See how well the homespuns blend with the Northwind blocks? They must be of the same era. The seller thought they were 1950.  Who knows?  So now the quilt has been delivered to it’s owner, and that’s the last you’ll see of it on my post.

This is a complete change of flavor in quilting.  It is very primitive, and very much my style. It’s called “Counting till Christmas Day”    The pattern is by Cheri Payne, my favorite pattern maker. It was a group project by the fan club and it will be donated to the Country Loft for their Quilt for a Cure Fundraiser in August. I have to make one for myself now, it is so dang cute!

Here’s a close up of the wool applique.  It is the perfect size for a door, and each of the stockings are open at the top to accept a candy cane or another little treat.  It has been a fun week of sewing!

It’s going to be a little bit like making sausage, I don’t know if you really want to know how I did it.  Check out the edges on this block!  By the way, they are hand pieced.I started pressing all of the Northwind blocks. Someone washed them, and they were in a big mess.  They were more or less flat, but the seams were wonky in every direction.  Then I arranged them in a planned random order on my design wall.

Then I sewed the blocks into rows.  There were plenty of areas that had bias, so careful easing was in order.So the rows are assembled. See the wonky block? And the off-grain of the homespun on the left?Now all the rows are joined.  There is a lot of “action” going on here, ripples and puckers.Now it’s time to figure out what kind of backing I’m going to use.  I resort to my trusty antique fabrics.This was formerly a feed sack or a flour sack. The string chain stitching is still in the fabric. I’ll bet it is at least 75 years old, which goes well with the blocks.Here’s a look at the back of the quilt top.  Pretty scary, huh?And another look at the back. . .And one last look.  See the little pleats?  Do you remember me telling you that I carefully trimmed the blocks?  No?  That’s because I didn’t!  I left them all exactly as I was presented them.  I know better than to try trimming up hand pieced blocks. I would undoubtedly trim all the knots and then I would really have a mess.  I had a method to my madnessNow I skip through the quilting–my favorite pattern for antique quilts–Baptist Fan.It’s pure magic!  It lays flat, the blocks look pretty good, and I’ve taken a pile of totally wonked out blocks and beat them into submission.  They will take on life now as this absolutely charming Northwinds quilt!  Now I have to go digging for some appropriate binding.  It has been a most rewarding day.

Voila!  After quilting and binding, the stains are still there, but Overall, it is absolutely charming.  And now has a new lease on life!

So, now I’m on a roll!  Another antique quilt top needed rescuing.  This one has never been quilted, nor even used as a quilt.  It is dated circa 1890.  I used a cotton batting, Baptist Fan quilting pattern, 1890 feed/flour sacks as a backing, and a pale red binding.  It turned out so well, don’t you love it?

My next task was to put together a “memory quilt” for this person’s granddaughter.  The fabrics ranged from denim to silk, but by using a single sashing design and a simple pattern, I think it turned out quite well, and the little one is sure to feel her grandma’s love.

I’m on a “Pink” roll, so the next item was this little string quilt that has everything from soup to nuts.  It has a fluffy polyester batting, so that means it is extra light weight and will be extra warm on someone’s lap.It only needs binding.

And last of all, this trip around the world quilt which was named “Rock around the Clock” because of the cool retro dance fabric.  Such FUN!

This is a close up, which still reads very subtle, but you can see the design of the quilting.  The neat thing about this quilt is that it is cool and warm.  Linen is one of those fabrics. Usually when you even just look at it, it wrinkles, but since this is quilted, it is just wonderfully soft and drapeable. 

The Irish Linen tablecloth had two small holes, so I used it on the back and appliqued hearts over the holes. I think it adds to the charm.  The tablecloth wasn’t large enough, so I added a cotton/linen sheet around the perimeter.  Did you know linen is heavy?  This queen size quilt weighed 16 pounds!  It should wear forever.  I’m ready to try another linen quilt now.

I had a similar background fabric, well similar in color at least.  And I patched the cheddar problem with salvaged fabric from another block.  The holes were all repaired.

This block shows the shows the new cheddar that I used to replace what didn’t exist. It is a bit darker, and I used it for binding too.  I think it is quite acceptable.  The little square on the left that needed replacing seems to work just fine too.

Remember, I ran out of backing and had to add another 15″ to the bottom?  Well, the seam is barely noticeable. It totally works for me.

And all that fullness?  I just quilted it in.  It doesn’t seem to look that bad based on the whole picture.

So, step back and notice the overall effect.  It’s a nice old quilt that will provide lots of use and visual stimulation.  If you look on the featured image post again, you can see the sashings still don’t line up, the points are missing on some, there are stains and repairs, but it has a new life and will finally get the respect it deserves.

Here’s the picture of the overall quilt top.  Visually appealing, but upon closer inspection. . .

There were issues.

Pictures speak louder than words. . .

what do you think. . . is it worth investing time and energy to repair the damage? I don’t know the age of this quilt top, but I’m guessing it could be up to 100 years old.

There is so much repair to be done, almost every block needs something. 

I think I’ll start by trimming some threads from the back side

Check out the back.  It’s all hand pieced.  The maker used white and brown thread to do the piecing. 

Brown and white thread were used to piece the blocks together.  Can you see the seam allowance?  It’s about 1/8″

OK, you can see I deemed it worthy of repair (it was so dang charming, I couldn’t resist.)  Now, not to be critical, but see how the sashing lines up? Not!

Next dilemma:  What color thread to quilt with???

Do you believe it?  ORANGE!  When I put it on the quilt, it positively disappears!  Who’d a thunk?

Did I mention that it was a little wonky?  There was a considerable amount of fullness to be dealt with.  What to do, what to do?  Gather it in, I guess.

So, I’m happily quilting along and about 3/4 of the way through, I spot a problem.  Do you see it?  I’m at the bottom of my backing and batting, but still have more quilt top.  I screwed up by putting the back on sideways, which was my intention, but then mistakenly put the top on top to bottom.  It’s longer than it is wider.  What now????

Well, it’s all about problem solving.  I stitched on an extra 15″ of batting.

Then I added on 15″ of backing with the help of DH.  I made this mistake once before and thought that would be it for my learning curve.  I guess some lessons need to be learned twice.

And here it is all repaired and quilted up.  I think it has so much charm.  It took me about 8 hours overall between the repairs and the quilting.  When I look at the work that the person before me did, I felt I needed to honor it.  Each block, even though imperfect, took quite a lot of time.  They were hand pieced.   There are 30 blocks.  I tried hand repairing some of them, and gave up because it was so slow going.  I went to the machine. I believe it took several hours to piece one block.  The sashing took a considerable amount of time too.  I sure wish this quilt could talk. I would love to hear it’s story.  I’m going to bind it with a very thin strip of cheddar and as I do it, bless the person who put time, effort, and love into the stitching of this wonderful unification of fabric.

I like this arrangement better with the geese on the right hand side. I’ve also added an appliqued star block with an embroidered tree beside it.

Yes. This is how I will sew it together. I cut and sew and square up as I go.  This will be the challenge border.  We are not required to put borders on four sides, so this is great. I am putting only one on.

In keeping with the rectangle theme, and for a little bit of balance, I’ve added the piano keys framed with black plaid to the left side of the quilt.  I like it, but I’m not going to attach it yet.  I may need to use it in another location.

I played around a little more and added more filler blocks and more from the block exchange to get a feel for what it could become.  I’m liking it!

I have a few places for some filler strips and some other orphan blocks that are laying around.  I want it to be king sized, so I’ll keep digging through my boxes to see what else is compatible. This is fun!

Here it is, all done and ready to go. The angle of the picture is a bit deceiving. It isn’t really so huge compared with the love seat.  I’m still waiting for someone to want my furniture from the living room so I can move this into it’s proper place.  It isn’t going to live in the dining room forever!

I switched gears then and quilted this wonderful “Block in a bag” sampler quilt. It was such fun!

Then I finished piecing and quilting this one. It has been in the works for many years, you can guess by the color scheme.  It is really a neat quilt though.

Switching gears one more time, I had to make 3 Memory Bears and incorporate the rather large logo somehow.  The only way I could think to do it was to make the bear and then make an over sized t-shirt (for the grey bears)  They turned out soooo cute!

My final challenge was to recreate a bear by looking at the original.  The pink one on the right is the original, I measured, drew, pieced, redrew, repieced and finally ended up with the purple one.  I hope it gets loved as much as the original one.

And that is what I have been doing for a couple of weeks to stay out of trouble!

For the filling of the quilt sandwich, I used left over batting scraps from other quilting projects.   I simply cut off the excess with very straight lines and then butt them up together and do a wide zig zag.  I can’t see using perfectly good new batting in what will be basically a throw away project.  But wait!  I can’t throw it away once it’s quilted.  I’ll donate it to Kennel Komforters!  I’ll cut it down to the regulation size and have several happy dogs.

I have also been making pillow cases for our interfaith shelter.  I had some very serviceable used blue sheets that just needed a little help to become nice pillow cases.  I went into the stash and found nice fabrics to use as contrasting hems.  They are so comfy, and a little cheerier than a plain old case.

This is what my garbage can looks like.  It is overflowing with scraps now, I have processed yards and yards of fabric into 3 1/2″, 2 1/2″, 1 1/2″ and 1″ strips.  The pieces filling the basket are less than 1″.  It feels so good to have the scraps under control.

This new quilt I’m working on requires 1 1/2″ and 3 1/2″ strips.  It’s very scrappy, so I need lots and lots of variety.  By processing the above fabrics, I’m left with the very simple task of taking a light, dark and light and assembling the 9 patch units.  I’m using the method recommended by Bonnie Hunter.  When the pieces are so small, it doesn’t much matter what the print is. I have some calicoes, Christmas prints, and some novelties included.  There are also a few really bright pieces, but they are necessary too for an interesting quilt.  One block (I don’t know it’s name) features homespun plaids, and the double nine patch is completely scrappy.  I love how it’s turning out.  I only have 9 plaid blocks and 7 double nine patch blocks to complete before assembling and setting in the border triangles.  It’s going to be king sized.