It’s Finished!

This post almost qualifies for Blast From the Past status. Almost.

Another Hatchett Job blog, hand quilted, hand quilting, quilting, quilts, homemade — Quilt in the frame
Photo by Jan Hatchett

I made this quilt top, purchased batting, backing, binding fabric, and quilting thread and gave it to my parents as a gift for Christmas 2010. Actually, I had started stalking sales of charm packs, discontinued patterns, and other precuts months in advance to cut costs on this project. Gotta keep it frugal! Mom had been mentioning that she needed to make a new quilt for her bed, but wasn’t about to spend money to get one started. She really wanted to hand quilt it and she had mentioned wanting to quilt it together, so she could have something we both had worked on.

So, I made the top and provided all the supplies. All I asked is that she help me baste it and pick out a quilting pattern that she would like for it. I would mark it and we would baste and put it in the frame so we both could sit and work on it.

But, I had not accounted for one thing. Mom had a really hard time deciding what design she would like for it. Finally, she decided that I should decide. So, I did. I picked an all over design of angular lines that complemented the angles in the pattern. We went to the church fellowship hall to mark the top on tables pushed together (the quilt was about 83 inches square and we didn’t have room here at the cabin). The heat, however, didn’t work and we nearly froze while I marked the pattern and basted and shivered.

Back at home, we attached the quilt to rails and Mom rolled them up to keep because by this time, it was nearing Christmas again and we could not have a both a quilt frame and a Christmas tree in the living room at the same time. It was summertime when we unrolled the quilt and rails to put them on our homemade frame and…all the carefully drawn markings had disappeared!

The top was already based and attached to rails, so I just re-marked the design the best I could on this less than stable surface and we got to work.

Suffice it to say that the quilting is imperfect, as are the quilters. And just last night, the binding was finished and the quilt washed and dried. Just in time for the holidays, 2013!