Old Wedding Quilt Progress

So far, this is going much better than I had hoped.  Of course, I still have a long way to go.  Thinking that I would just remove enough of the blocks to make it nine blocks square, rebind it, and put on a hanging sleeve, I got started.  The first thing I did was take off the outer border.

Then I started taking off the outside row of blocks which allowed me to get a closer look at the batting.  

Yikes!   That is some dried up , crumbly, old batting!   I started picking out the quilting so I could remove the batting and made an even more interesting discovery.

I have no idea what that is, but seriously, that batting really had to go!  (It makes me wonder about all those quilts I have that my grandparents made.)  I turned on the TV, tuned in to some cheesy Hallmark movies that don't take a lot of concentration, and got busy with my seam ripper.

So far, I have about 20 hours invested, an old backing, and a pile of blocks and sashing, all of which are pretty fragile.

I don't think I have nine blocks with no damage so I'll have to take apart some of the worst blocks and combine the pieces to come up with enough blocks to make it nine by nine.

The next decision will be how to stabilize the blocks before I put it all back together.  I don't want to lose the character of the blocks by pressing out the wrinkles that came from all those years of using and washing.

I have a few ideas, but I need to give it some serious thought.  I'll probably do a little research and ask advice from my quilty friends.

I have to say that I am really having fun working on this.  I knew it would be a challenge when I offered to do it, but I can already anticipate one huge benefit - a great feeling of accomplishment when it's finished.

Triforce Quilt

I have been wanting to write about this quilt since I started it, but I didn't want a certain someone to see it.  That's been happening a lot this past year.  Not only secret quilts, but now that I think of it, purple quilts, too.   Thank goodness for friends throwing purple scraps my way once in a while, otherwise I would never be able to make quilts for all the people whose favorite color is purple.  I've been wanting to make this quilt for a long time.  I actually bought the pattern in December, 2013 from Eric the Quilter's etsy shop.  So getting around to it took over three and a half years, but once I started I finished in less than 3 months.  

 The original plan was to make a wall-hanging, and I had the piecing for that pretty much finished in a couple of weeks.

Then, though, I decided to make it at least a throw size, and maybe even a twin.  That meant ripping out all those setting triangles on the bottom edge.  What fun!

I sewed and sewed, and before I knew it the top was quite a bit longer.  I still wasn't happy though because it looked too long and skinny to me.  To add to the width I would have to rip out all those setting triangles along the sides.  NO. WAY!   

How about adding some borders?  I still had plenty of purple left.

I've never worked with a quilt that had all bias edges so I stay-stitched it first to keep it from stretching   My favorite marking tool for darks really came in handy!  Love my Fons & Porter Mechanical Pencil with White Lead!

Marking and trimming made it a lot easier to add the borders.

From this point on it should have been super easy.  Hmmm, not so much.  I wanted so much for all the squares in the borders to look balanced that I made it fit and ended up with ripply borders.

I figured if I quilted a little heavier in the borders, the fullness might "quilt out" though.  Right?  No.  Wrong again.  I wanted this done!  I even took it with me on vacation and set up my own personal sewing area so I could work on it when I got tired of the pool and the beach.

I quilted two sides and wasn't happy, so I ripped it all that quilting out.  Then, I actually took the borders off.  I've never done that before on a quilt that was mostly quilted.  

I put my "Jack the Seam Ripper" to good use!  If you need a new ripper or a really special one for a gift, check his out.  They are great!

So, I removed at least two inches from each side, reattached it, got it quilted, and finally got to my favorite part - binding!

By the way, isn't that another great backing fabric?  It's from the "Mostly Manor" collection by Victoria Findlay Wolfe.  I bought it from my fave Fat Quarter Shop.

My friend, Penny, made another really beautiful label for me using a downloaded pattern of the Triforce I had purchased online.   I love that I can find just about anything I want online!  (Not sure Hubby feels the same way about my online shopping.....)

So, it's quilted, and bound .....

..... and delivered.  I feel pretty confident that this will be a much-loved quilt.  I sure put love into it!


SaveSave