Vintage Grandmother's Flower Garden Quilt Finish for Brad + New Studio Update

Good Morning and Happy "Thanksgiving Eve" to all who are celebrating in the United States this week!  Our moving truck delivered all of our furniture and boxes to our new home in North Carolina a little over a week ago, and I'm feeling thankful that my family is together again and that (so far) we have not discovered any major damage sustained in the move from Florida.  I still have a ways to go before I will be able to get back to my sewing projects (I'll share an update on the new studio at the tail end of today's blog post).  But first, I want to share this unusual vintage quilt finish that I completed for a client about two years ago and never got around to writing up on the blog.  

95 x 100 Vintage Grandmother's Flower Garden Quilt Finish

My client Brad reached out to me about this beautifully hand pieced Grandmother's Flower Garden quilt top that was made by his great-aunt in the late 1960s or early 1970s.  I could tell from the photos he sent that the quilt top was well-made and in excellent condition.

Beautiful, Even, Hand Stitched Patchwork Seams

Vintage Little Boy's Britches for Bobbie + Brandon's Breeches (Just for Fun!)

Hello, my lovelies!  Now that I've wrapped up both of my Christmas quilt projects, I've resumed working on my FrankenWhiggish Rose needle turn appliqué project and I'm continuing to weigh my options for a new machine piecing project.  At the moment, I'm feeling wickedly inspired by a vintage hand pieced quilt top that my client Bobbie rescued from abuse and neglect and brought to me recently for longarm quilting.

Rescued and Redeemed: Bobbie's Vintage Little Boy's Britches Quilt

98 x 98 Little Boy's Britches (Vintage) with Basketweave E2E

Bobbie isn't a quilter; she's an interior designer who loves and appreciates vintage quilts.  When she spied this quilt top in a secondhand shop, she says it was black with filth and they were using it to wrap motor parts in or something like that!  Can you imagine anyone doing that to a quilt top that somebody spent hours and hours piecing by hand?!  I feel like the cops ought to have been called, or Social Services, or at least the Quilt Police!  

Two Very Special Clients' Quilts, and a Movie Star Moves Into My Studio

Happy Thursday, Friends!  I just finished writing a different blog post for TGIFF (Thank Goodness It's Finished Friday) that I've scheduled to publish automatically at 6 PM EST this evening, since that's when Friday begins for those linking up from Australia, so be sure to check back for that one and link up your own finishes, even if it's a small finish like a single block completed.  Meanwhile, I have a couple of extra-special client quilts that I've been wanting to share with you.  

Julie's Vintage Equestrian Applique Quilt Repair

This first one belongs to Julie, whose puppy chewed a hole through all layers of the quilt at the top edge.  These dogs sure do keep me busy, don't they?!  I neglected to get a good "before" phot of the entire quilt before I started working on it, but here's what it looked like when it was nearly ready to go home again:

74 x 84 Vintage Equestrian Applique Quilt, After Repair

Julie cherishes this quilt because her husband had it custom made for her as a surprise gift many years ago.  Their family is involved with equestrian sporting and I believe he may have even drawn the horse silhouette for the applique shapes himself.  He found a quilter to make it and was given a shopping list of how much fabric was needed, then went to the fabric store and picked everything out himself -- hence the assortment of calicos, corduroys, and poly blend fabrics in this quilt.

Detail of the Worst Damage Area

This quilt was made with a wide sashing between the blocks and a narrow, 1/2" finished width outer border in the same fabric that simply wrapped to the back of the quilt and was machine stitched in lieu of traditional binding.

Same Spot On the Quilt, Backing Side

Here's what that section of the quilt looked like after I'd repaired it:

Repairs Completed, All Machine Stitched

My client's budget dictated that all of the machine repairs would be machine stitched for this project.  The binding was damaged and falling off on all four sides of the quilt and would need to be replaced, and finding a suitable fabric was the biggest challenge.  I'd initially told Julie that I'd use a solid red for the binding, but I couldn't bring myself to do it.  My goal in restoring a family quilt like this is to have it look as much like it did originally as I possibly can, and although a red binding would look good on the quilt, it would definitely draw your eye and look different to its owners.  I could not find anything like the original ivory/red/blue print calico fabric in any of the local quilt shops I visited, but I did find a red and white polka dot fabric.  I was able to tone down the bright white background of the new fabric to better match the original fabric by coffee staining it before using it to repair the quilt.