I hope those of you who were fans of the original quilt top will not be disappointed that I ended up changing it a bit. In the process of pressing the top to prep for quilting, I realized it was never going to be flat enough to stitch. I also discovered, upon closer inspection, that the top did contain some dubious fabrics — a few had rust stains and there were a couple of thick flannel pieces.
When I began unpicking the blocks, it was easy to see why the quilt was so lumpy. The pictures below are representative, although each block was oddly shaped in its own unique way. Some were square-ish, most were sort of rectangle-ish, and the length of the crooked sides varied from 9″ to 11″.
I trimmed all the blocks to the lowest common denominator (9″), and attempted to straighten them a little if I could. The suspect fabrics were replaced with pieces reused from the top, whenever possible. Although I kept the blocks in their original positions, I worried (because of the trimming) that I was going to ruin what Kathleen, in her comment, called the “step-back view” of the top. I’m pretty happy with the result, though, and now it’s nice and flat, and also a little smaller.
Since the top has about a gazillion seams, I knew I wanted a simple quilting pattern with a bigger stitch and thicker thread. I auditioned several different colors and types of thread, and decided on 3 strands of good old, versatile 6-strand embroidery floss in black, and a simple diagonal pattern. The floss kind of hugs into the fabric instead of sitting on top, and I happen to have a ton of DMC #310.
Now I’m excited to start quilting, because I’m going to enjoy marveling at every single crazy print she added to this top.
I’m sure the quilt top, and its original maker, are happy with the way it looks now!
It looks wonderful, Martha. What a lot of work to unstitch and square up the blocks. Worth it, though, of course, because now it’s flat. I see some familiar fabrics in the quilt, ones that appear in some of the old quilts I have and a few pieces of fabric, too.
How well will the embroidery floss hold up over the long term? I will be quilting a scrappy quilt with a lot of seams in the next few months and have been considering threads. This is the first I’ve heard of hand quilting with embroidery floss. I just assumed it would not be durable enough to last. I sewed a button on with it because I didn’t have thread in the correct color and it didn’t hold up for that, so I’m just wondering.
Thanks for sharing this wonderful quilt with us.
Thanks, Nancy — I’m also recognizing quite a few fabrics from my stash in the top.
I’ve done quite a bit of quilting with embroidery floss, and I’ve never had a problem with it breaking or deteriorating. My sister has some very old quilts made by her husband’s grandmother which were tied with embroidery floss and they have held up for 80 years. I use at least 3 strands of floss for quilting, and I only use DMC or Anchor brand floss.
Wow Martha I love this! So quirky. It’s on my list to make now. It looks a bit like what lots of modern quilters are doing these days.
Amazing and very, very fun to look at. Your quilting is so straight and even! A wonderful quilt brought back to life in your hands.
I think your quilting is the perfect choice for this quilt! I love the quilt, it looks like a piece of modern art and am glad you could get it to lay straight! I can imagine that this is going to be a real fun piece to quilt!!! It feels like it has a “real deep scrapbag” in it! Enjoy! Hugs, Mickie
It IS a marvel! I love it!
Your changes took this from a fun oddity to what the original quilter intended, and you did it with care and respect. If this has been my work I’d be thrilled at how you’ve finished it.
What a great assortment of fabrics! You did a wonderful job reworking this quilt top. It should be fun to quilt and examine all the unique fabrics as you go.
Oh it is still very compelling. Really, its a wonderful quilt and better for the consistency. What a job to unpick it!
I love revisiting this top. The colors are bright but I enjoy all of their patterns.