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I made this quilt in the 90s, finishing the work of an unknown quiltmaker.

I was able to finish this quilt that I started in January at a quilt retreat ( remember those?) I had bought 8 blocks from my hubby's Aunt's estate sale. The blocks were made by her before she married, and, it has the names embroidered by the laddies who made them. Aunt Melba's block is the purple tulip. I added my homemade hexies to the last block and put the quilt together. I love the fabrics and the signatures.

When I was a mere youth, in my 40s, I still believed I would live forever, so I bought a lot of vintage linens and embroideries at my favorite flea markets and thrift shops. Over the years, I accrued quite the collection. 
Now, a zillion years older, the pandemic quarantine has given me the time, space, and motivation to stitch some of my best old linens into this new 79" x 82" quilt. Front: 

The center is a spectacular linen tablecloth. I quilted around all the white foliage (but not close around every detail.)

At the center, I placed this ...

It was a big push to finish before I start Teacher Work Days.  Once school starts intense projects are much harder.

This quilt was made for JoAnne by her mother Florence about 1976.  You can tell that Florence was resourceful.  She used the fabric she had.

Every block needed some repair, and that was how I approached it:  One block at a time.  You can read more about some specific repair techniques HERE and HERE.

Since the one-block-at-a-time system seemed to be working so well, I quilted it the same way–A meander-stipple around the birds in each block.  My ...

The quilt has 30 blocks, and not a single one didn’t need something.  Some were fairly simple, just restitching the ric-rack or mending a small hole, but a few were much more involved.

There is no batting, exactly, in the quilt.  Rather, a recycled, lightweight fleece served as both batting and backing.  There was also essentially no quilting.  Just some stitch-in-the-ditch at the sashing and between the blocks.  The blocks themselves are roughly 13″ x 14″. You can guess some of the problems that causes.

This block, and two similar to it, had ruined backgrounds.  The birds were in ...

This might be out of my league, but I was asked to do it by a long-time neighbor and friend of my parents.

Her mother made her this quilt when she was a young child.  It is much loved and is full of memories…

Each block and each bird have their own personality.

I am tentatively starting to work on it, making repairs one block and a time and hoping for a grand revelation on a finish.  It is mostly not-quilted and there is no batting…

Suggestions?  Ideas?  Encouragements?

Life on the American frontier was hard. There were prairies to tame, trees to fell, and fences to build. There was butter to churn, laundry to scrub, and water to fetch.  

Despite such labor-filled days, those resourceful pioneer women found ways to whip up easy patterns like the Log Cabin block. These simple, pretty quilts were used not only as bed coverings, but as windows, room dividers, and doors, too!

This week Jenny is working on a Simple Log Cabin with a traditional red center square to represent the heart of the home—the hearth.  Click HERE to learn how ...

Road to California, a terrific quilt show, took place last week, ending on Sunday. There was something for everyone - traditional, art, modern, and group quilts; challenges, guild raffle quilts, and more than a dozen wildly diverse special exhibits. Great classes. Hallway massage. Uniformed Boy Scouts who, for a small donation, watch your bags while you shop. Tons of vendors.

Also, it's next to a mellow, convenient little airport - you could walk from the Ontario, California airport to the convention center. So it's not surprising that this warm and welcoming show attracts 50,000 viewers, plus entrants and vendors ...

I had a great time at retreat. My back was not ready for the whole 2 days,  but, I made it into the second day. After relaxing the rest of the weekend, my back is better, and ready to go again. It just gets tired.
The first project I worked on, was a set of blocks that we bought from My husband's Aunt estate in the nineties. I talked about it  here. Each block is appliqued and embroidered with  names from an exchange. There were only 8 blocks, so I made a little set of hexagons to make it ...

Sometime in the 1930’s, my great grandmother, Mina Opal, started this quilt.  She made 53 butterfly blocks.

Sometime in the 1980’s, my mother, Verna Lee, made the 54th block.

Earlier this year, Mom handed the project to me and said, “You can finish this.”

And I have.

Working on the quilt was an interesting experience.  I felt guided in some way and am convinced this finished product is very close to what my great grandmother had in mind.  Why else would there be 6 straight butterflies and all the rest on an angle?

I am not sure she ...

The shortest distance between two points is a straight line, but this isn’t a race! We’re quilting with curves and enjoying each stitch!

Our new Drunkard’s Path templates make quick work of curved blocks, and this week we’re giving you an up-close look at how those curves are stitched together. It really is so fun and simple! Click HERE to watch the tutorial!