Thursday, June 18, 2009

Reconstruction begins

Since I have to work ALL weekend (ugh!), and my hubby will be out of town recruiting, I'm taking my kids to my mom's house for the weekend. While there, I want her to see and know that I've been working on her mom's/grandmom's quilt. However, I didn't want her to freak out when she saw all the bits and pieces of quilt that remain as I rip seams, so I starting sewing some of the trimmed down pieces back together last night. I find it really hard to work with fabrics with so little contrast. I keep telling myself that 70 or so years ago when this quilt was constructed, it DID have contrast. It was pretty obvious from the wear (holes!) and the much darker fabrics in the seam allowances that this quilt had been put to hard and frequent use. Luckily, the quilt was scrappy to begin with, so I don't need to be particular about how I put it back together. You'll notice that I am putting like-fabric triangles together to make diamonds in each block, though.

The finished square size is 1.5", so each of these blocks is 6" finished (6.5" as you see them). One thing I noticed is that the fabrics are VERY stretchy and hard to work with. I don't know if she cut things on the bias or if older fabrics tend to not hold their shape well, but I am already preparing myself for a quilt that is not quite square. (Who am I kidding, none of my quilts are quite square! At least I have an excuse this time.)

3 comments:

marlene@ByTheSeam said...

The quilt makeover is looking good. Lots of work for sure.
You left a comment on my post about the old sewing machine....not sure what is wrong with it but you can still get some parts for them. And also I would like a copy of that quilt from the magazine you mentioned but you have no email address available.

Molly said...

Hey you are doing good on the quilt redo. Never fear, it will look better soon. Take care

Nancy said...

Neat idea to put the triangle in the center of each block. You have such creative ideas! I bet the kids will love being with Grandma this weekend - and I'm sure she will love having them!