Finished!
Having heavily marked all the diagonal quilting lines, I’m slowly rolling the quilt back and forth on the longarm while spraying all the blocks with water: spray…wait to dry…roll…repeat. It helps that I have a ceiling fan almost directly above the machine.
So while I’m going through the “blue line removal” let me show you a few close-ups of the added embellishing.
This tiny pink butterfly, measuring about 1/2”x3/4” comes in handy by covering a split in the seam. Remember back a few posts when I told you the quilt top is a combo of both hand and machine construction? Well, this barely 1/8” seam opened up due to the stresses of the quilting process. While on the longarm I positioned the little butterfly and stitched around the edges.
More vintage ribbon fashioned into a bow at the top of the basket handle. The white lace leaf/fern looking motif is new and commercially produced. The ivory Lily of the Valley piece is vintage.
This flower, an older commercially produced piece has gotten a facelift by adding hand embroidery.
French knots and commercially produced daisy-like flowers add interest.
Larger daisy flowers and hand embroidered lazy-daisy flowers. I have yet to heat remove the lazy-daisy petal stitching lines.
Binding…one of my least fav tasks…a very old dominated hand thumb injury (think ski slope tumble) makes hand stitching very slow.
Taa-Daa! Finished and through the washer/dryer! Soft and cuddly and clean and ready as a utility throw for any cool weather that might find its way to Houston.
Now…you know the actual longarm quilting dilemma I experienced with this quilt. Do I like the diagonal lines? I say this honestly…I’m not crazy about them. Do I like the fact that this project is finished? Yes!
Do I think I should have thought out the process a bit better and added a 3” border around the quilt top to give it a visual anchor? Yes. I’ll just call it 20/20 hindsight.
Am I happy to have had the chance to rescue/save this wonderful vintage quilt? Absolutely!
Blessings to all and happy quilting!
Rhonda
Rhonda Dort 
Rhonda, in spite of all the obstacles you had to overcome with this piece, it turned out beautiful and you have a wonderful quilt you can be proud of! Great job!
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Congratulations!! A job well. done. Lots of hours I bet.
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Beautiful, love it! I’m learning so much from your sessions. As a newby I really appreciate your excellent close-up photos and detailed explainations. Thank you!
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We’ll done Rhonda! Tell me, what do you do with the quilts you rescue once you finish?
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Well some of them I actually use as throws, here in Houston I really don’t need a quilt on the bed too often others sometimes just get stacked up in my stack I like to call “oh look I finished these projects!” 🙂
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Another beautiful save.
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It’s beautiful and I love the cross-hatching, one of my favorite ways to fill in (but then I hand quilt). I mark my quilts with blue water erasable pens too, so when I’m finished, I just toss it in the washer and use the rinse cycle, easiest way to remove the marks.
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I am blown away with your transformation of the quilt. Your detail work is amazing! I get enthralled looking at every detail of each close-up picture. Oh, those beautiful bleeding hearts! I gasped when the caption words “utility quilt” leapt off the page, but yes! I can imagine the pure joy of your being covered in the memories of your experience in creation.
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Amen to the bleeding hearts!
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It looks fantastic, you did a great job of rescuing and reviving a very tired and much loved quilt. Now it will stand up to may more years of love.
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Beautiful love the way you quilt
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