Grandmother's Garden

I got a wonderful package in the mail on Monday—my vintage redone quilt had returned from the fabulous Chris, who worked magic with her quilting!

The first thing I did was spread it out on the living room floor to marvel at the quilting.  It was so beautiful!

My grandmother pieced the top in the late 1960s or early 1970s.  She'd sent it to my mother to finish, but that didn't happen.  Instead, it got tucked away, and I found it many years later in a big plastic tote that ended up at my house after mom passed away.

Grandma and me, picking cherries c. 1963

You can read below about me discovering the quilt top and ultimately deciding—thanks to inspiration and encouragement from Quilt Diva Julie—to take it apart and remake each block.  

Back Story and Inspiration

Blocks Before and After: 

Part One 

Part Two
Part Three
Part Four  
Top Redone

 

My goal was to preserve the wild and wonderful vintage prints in the tulip/lily-shapes and replace some of the fabrics that had condition issues.

 

Chris truly captured the eclectic spirit of the quilt with her free-form quilting.  I love, love, love it!  She matched the thread to the many colors in the blocks so that it blended in and didn't detract.  That's a lot of thread changes!  

I really appreciate the TLC she put into the quilting.  You can see more on Chris's blog and public photo album.

The Redo is Done

I finished reassembling the quilt top I was remaking.  Whee!

Doesn't she look pretty dancing in the breeze?  Footloose and fancy free!  (I'm going to have to Google the origin of that phrase, word nerd that I am...)

I am so happy that I went ahead with redoing my grandmother's quilt top rather than stuffing it back in the tote.  If you missed the other posts about this quilt top, including block by block comparisons, you can find them here, here, here, here, and here.

The four-lily block in Grandma's quilt was the inspiration for the Thoroughly Modern Lily quilt pattern.

Here's the original quilt top, made by my grandmother in the late 1960s or early 1970s:

And the updated version:

Another before and after comparison:

Before

After

The original quilt top would not have withstood quilting or use in its condition.  There was some bleeding of the green fabric dye into the white parts, and other problems with most of the solid colored parts of the old quilt.  However, all the prints used in the lily shapes within the blocks were in good condition.  The vintage fabrics were like a little time capsule.

I took each block apart and rebuilt it, using stash or scrap fabric in place of the solid colored cross pieces.

Grandma had used a lot of red, in seven of the block centers, which I replaced with various other colors instead.  I put some of the red back in via the cornerstones in the sashing.

The multicolored sashing/border print seems to tie it all together.

Special thanks to Quilt Diva Julie for the inspiration and encouragement.  Her remake of "Shirley's Journey" got me thinking of the possibilities.  Also thanks to Elizabeth for sending me a bit from her stash to finish the last block.  Quilting friends rock!

Now it's time to whoop it up with Sarah and the gang at Confessions of a Fabric Addict!

The Next Batch

I've been having a good time remaking more vintage blocks this past week.  I love piecing.  Maybe I'm not so much a quilter as I am a piecer.

Whatever.  This is what I have to show for it.

They are paired with the "before" as the top photo and the "after" right below it.

Just two more to go and I'll have them all redone! 

I was going to add to the group with a few more of my own, but on second thought, I'll stick with the original 12.  

I have been pondering how in the world to tie them all together, but I happened upon some fabric the other day that just may work as a sashing. Fingers crossed.

Crazy honkin' strawberry print, huh?  It's some kind of heavy duty cotton-poly (mostly poly) blend.  I can imagine some young miss with a pair of shortalls made from this that chafed like the dickens (pardon me while I interject my own jaded memories of synthetics).  

The dark blue floral print up at the very top is rayon (this quilt is going to need a "no smoking in bed" warning on the label). The balance seem to be straight up bandana prints.

The next project for me will be finishing an oldie but a goodie—a black and white quilt top that's a couple years old.  The thought of quilting it has always made me want hide under the covers.  I didn't want to wreck it.  You know that feeling?  Even after a friend came up with a wonderful plan for the quilting that seemed entirely doable, it still sat around unfinished.

Well, heck.  A couple years is plenty long enough to be a UFO.  I must have learned a few things in that amount of time (aside from the fact I am an excellent procrastinator).  It's time to move past the angst about quilting it and forge ahead.

Or at least baste it, for starters.  Sometimes "forging ahead" looks more like baby steps.

Deconstruction and Reconstruction

We are having a new roof put on this week, and as I write this, there is the noise of air compressors and general thumping and pounding above me.  They're finishing up the final bit this morning, as there is a chance of thunderstorms today.

This was an attempt to take a clever photo of the workmen on the roof, which I could see in shadow as I did dishes in the kitchen and looked out onto the backyard.  It was fun to watch them move around on the rooftop in silhouette, though it may have lost something in the photo translation. 

Indoors, there has been another kind of tear-down and rebuilding going on. 

You may remember my grandma's quilt top, which was the inspiration for my Thoroughly Modern Lily quilt pattern. 

Instead of folding and putting away the old quilt top, which lay crumpled on a chair in the sewing room, I got a whim to cut it apart and see if I could remake it.

Before you gasp in horror, let me just say that as beautiful as this quilt top is, a good portion of the fabrics would never stand up to quilting or use.  Basically, all the solid colors need to be replaced, including the white background, sashing, and the cross-pieces in each block.  There were some other issues as well, a tuck here, a gap there, etc.

I carefully took apart one block, stitch by stitch.  I threw away the solid colored pieces and swished what remained in a sink of warm water and a little quilt soap, rinsed, then rolled in a towel to blot.  Then I pressed the pieces the rest of the way dry with the iron.  There's definitely some synthetic in this checked print; I could smell it when I pressed it.

I re-cut the pieces using the templates from the Thoroughly Modern Lily quilt pattern.  Grandma's pieces were just a smidgeon bigger than the templates, so it worked out nicely.

Redone block number one!

And here is a second one, before and after:

That "groovy" brown print fabric is my favorite.  Upon taking it apart, I could tell it was a mostly polyester, blouse type fabric, definitely not 100% cotton.  But it seemed to handle okay, and reassembly was without incident.

My intention would be to honor the general color scheme of the original quilt, though perhaps not put quite as much red back into the block centers, maybe mix it up a little more there.  I may also add some blocks of my own to make the quilt a bit larger.  Also trying to work, as much as possible, with what is in my stash.

This will be a slow process, one that I work on now and then.  I think it'll be fun, though.

I'm joining the gals and guys linking today at Confessions of a Fabric Addict.