The Scrappy Split-16 quilt garnered much attention this week.
Backing with brick strip
On Monday, I received the yard I was short of the wide mottled green backing fabric so I was able to sew this brick strip and the additional fabric to make the back plenty long. If my calculations are correct, the brick strip should hit about chest high when a person is snuggled under the quilt.
Hanging out the wrinkles
I flipped the backing over and spread a king size Hobb’s Poly Down batting on it, after trimming it a few inches from each side. Atop the batting, I placed the quilt top and allowed the ‘floating’ sandwich to relax for two days to eliminate wrinkles.
Early Thursday morning, the quilt was rested and wrinkle-free for installing in the frame. I worked on it alone so it took several hours but gave me no problems. I was a little apprehensive because of the multitude of bias pieces but it rolled even and straight, just like it should. Perfect!!
I made a simple stencil of my ‘signature’, including my name, location and date (hopefully) finished. I may be a bit too optimistic in assuming the quilt will be finished this year. The body will be somewhat intensely quilted and it’s rather large…106″ x 120″. It remains to be seen how the borders will be quilted.
The plan is for Bob to develop a custom design for the borders. Though he’s been dabbling at it for weeks, I’ve seen nothing. <shrug> I may give up the wait and choose a design of my own. I prefer quilting the borders as I quilt the body so we shall see. I won’t wait much longer.
Signature quilting done
I love having a quilt in the frame. I enjoy quilting during the day when I have abundant natural light and can glance out the windows to watch the marvels of nature. I usually quilt for several hours each day until my hands get tired, then I play on the Net until time to cook dinner. I spend my evenings hand piecing my Tumbling Stars quilt top as I watch movies on my computer monitor. Yes, life is simple and good!
Because we celebrated Mother’s Day last weekend while Jacob was here, we will have a quiet, uneventful observance. As usual, I purchased my own gift and it was delivered Friday. My new-to-me 1925 Singer model 66 is here. I spent a little time getting familiar with her. Oh, she is a sweetie!! If the weather clears, I’ll spend time during the next few days cleaning the wrought iron treadle base that was part of my grandmother’s machine, to make a nice home for this ‘new’ one. Maybe my next machine-made quilt top will be totally treadled. That’s the plan!
Shirl