You haven't seen hide nor hair of Tom for a good while now, so here he is all bundled up, and despite the -5 degrees F (a warm up from a bone chilling -27 degrees F earlier in the morning), he is cheerfully holding my quilt...moving it this way and that until it was straight and not blowing in the wind, lol . Pretty sweet of him, huh?!
Here's the final chapter on this quilt story. I spent a couple of winter months in 2009 gathering materials and piecing together
Midwest Pride. I spent the autumn of 2010 hand quilting it. No rush, huh? I finally finished the quilting and hand sewed the binding on last weekend. Because I used some recycled materials such as the sweet soft wool that I felted a while back, some gently used 100% cotton shirts that I found at the thrift shops (needless to say these were also washed - this was the best fabric to work with!), some prewashed new cottons, some unwashed new cottons and a prewashed 100% cotton bed sheet from IKEA (backing). I was curious to see how this blend would wash up and felt a good deal nervous while it tumbled around in the front loader (love the front loading machine for my quilts). The quilt washed up beautifully and was followed with about twenty minutes in a low temp dryer to reshape the cotton and was then laid out flat, smoothed into shape a bit and left to finish drying. I had such good luck with this mix of materials! I intend to push my luck again!
I think it looks nice in our dining room. The quilt is 55 inches square. Here's a peek of it hanging in the freshly painted room. There are decorating and furniture changes to make, but this quilt is definitely the focal point of the room and I love it there! Tom will hang a dining room light and I'll add some antique things to the space. The entire house is a work in progress right now so it felt real good to hang this quilt and better yet, to declare a finish!!
Now it's your turn to push your luck. Break away from the traditional same old, same old materials in the sewing and quilting department. It absolutely has it rewards!
Happy quilting!
I am ready to pass this Cottage Creek pattern for Kindness Matters on to another quilter. If you would like to try your hand at making one, just leave me a note to put your name in the hat. I'll have Tom draw a name "out of the hat" in a couple of days so there will be time to whip one up before Valentine's Day if you'd like, although seeing this happy bird is nice for any time of the year.
