Friday, June 07, 2013

A Little Finish with a Long Story

I call this little doll quilt, Upcycled Shoo Flies, because it was begun when I was cleaning up some small red and pink and white scraps (from making free-pieced loving words for the Block Lotto) on my work table and instead of tossing them, I made a dozen 4-inch liberated shoo fly blocks. The finished little quilt measures 19 by 24 inches.

Recycled Flies- Wonky Flies Doll Quilt

If you like the wonky shoo fly blocks and think you'd like to make some of your own, check out my tutorial, Three Ways to Wonkify a Traditional Quilt Block.

After I put them together into this top, I wasn't quite happy with it.  When I won a strip of a vintage sheet, I  remade it with some of the floral strips.

Quilting from the backWhen I came back to this quilt early this year, I thought it would be fun to try quilting from the back in the plain border. I didn't have enough of the floral sheet for a back, so I pieced the back and used it fo borders on the back. First, I quilted the center of the quilt–feathers winding around the white background, outlining, then echoing the print in the floral strips. Then I flipped the quilt over, used painters' tape to mark the inside edge of the border and quilted the borders by outlining, then echoing the flowers in the print.

I felt like Murphy's law started working overtime as soon as I decided to finish up this long-ago pieced quilt.  I mentioned earlier this week how I started quilting it shortly after my Bernina came back from a trip to the dealer for a routine maintenance.  Actually it was exactly 2 weeks after ... and the machine stopped working (again) soon after I started quilting the feathers in the white background.

Aaargh - out of threadWhen I resumed the quilting earlier this week, I managed to get to the borders before I ran out of thread. Usually, I celebrate when I finish off a coneof thread ... but not this time. I didn't have any more of the Lace White thread, but I was feeling so motivated to finish this silly little lark of a project, so I decided to use another "white" of the same type of thread. Grace insists ... it's time to take a break

A couple nights ago, I was determined to keep going until it was done ... my cat, Grace Hopper, had other ideas and late Wednesday night, insisted I stop quilting and go upstairs to bed now.

I was able to finish yesterday evening ... and Grace was happy to keep me company while I stitched down the binding late last night. I had pulled out the last of the vintage sheet with a plan to use it for a hanging sleeve, but decided I liked it for the binding.  The tiny pink piping was added using Susan Cleveland's Piping Hot Binding technique.

Here are a few more detail photos of the finished quilt.

Upcycled Shoo Flies - Quilting detail front and back Upcycled Shoo Flies-piped binding Upcycled Shoo Flies-detail Upcycled Shoo Flies-quilting detail

This sweet little girly doll quilt makes me smile because it's truly a silk purse made from a sow's ear: a recycled sheet and small scraps that were on their way to the trash. Even though crazy things kept going wrong and a bossy cat got in the way, it's finally done.

Now I just have to decide where to hang it and appreciate it for a while.

I'm celebrating this finish by joining the linky parties on:
Can I get a Whoop Whoop?
Finish It Up Friday
Link a Finish Friday

And because Grace helped so much with this quilt:
Feline Friday

11 comments:

Julierose said...

This is so cute! Love all that yummy pink...Julierose

Sarah said...

Hello Grace and welcome to Feline Friday! I love the way you quilted this little gem, partly from the front and partly from the back. I always love a good feather but echong the flowers was a fun choice.

ipatchandquilt said...

Love the combination on fabrics in this quilt!
Esther
ipatchandquilt dot wordpress dot com
esthersipatchandquilt at yahoo com

a maidenhair fern said...

darling! I love the wonky triangles.

Terri said...

It is fine-ly done! Love it! and you kept going even through all that trouble! Atta Girl.
So I'm intrigued by the piping. I've never see it placed next to the binding like that. Does it make the binding easier to do? It is very beautiful.
Hugs

Kyle said...

Your shoo fly blocks are so free spirited, if that's a word. Thanks for the tutorial about wonky blocks. It's something I've wanted to try. I've enjoyed your blog.

Nancy in NV-wheres the dude at blogspot said...

I'm glad you didn't toss those scraps! I can't bear to throw out scraps either. I have bags of them that I need to use. Love your quilt and the piping in the binding is fabulous.

Jenny Watson Blogs said...

Indeed! It's looking amazing because you choose perfect colors for the perfect quilt.

http://www.invillas.com/villas-for-rent-in-italy.html

Barbara said...

What a fun little quilt!

Anonymous said...

When I looked on Yahoo, I didn't realize the blocks were 4-inch blocks! (Yes you had mentioned doll quilt, but I didn't process size.) I'm even more impressed. :-) And the piping looks great.

Unknown said...

really your post is so nice.All the color looks amazing.Many many thanks for your nice post.
walk in tubs

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