A UFO and one of my favorites

This a rescue quilt. I love finding pieces of things others have started and finishing them. I bought these 9 patches at a garage sale. The ladies there said that they had belonged to their aunt who had died of breast cancer. When she was really sick she couldn't do much, but she could sew and so she stitched up these gingham 9 patches. Some were machine sewn, some were hand pieced, the pieces and the squares were not even at all, the corners don't match - but I love them! I squared/evened them up as best I could and had an end roll of butterfly fabric that I used for the sashing. I quilted the 9 patches 1/4 inch from the seams and then quilted colorful paths for the butterflies, all by hand. You can't see it in this pic, but there are prairie points around the edge. The back of this quilt is a cotton sheet. I do not recommend this for hand quilting! It makes it very hard work! I also didn't baste especially well and there are lots of puckers in the back. I still love this quilt and I hope that if the original owner of these squares could see what I've done she would like it and be happy. I sure am happy to have her squares and to have been able to finish them for her.




This is just a really big mess right now, but one of these days it will be a king size quilt for my bed. I bought a ridiculous number of block kits from Hancock's when our local store went out of business. I've sold a ton on ebay, given a ton away and still have a ton left! (If you'd like some let me know - I'll make you a deal!) I've been strip piecing fabric from the kits to make a kind of strippy quilt with them. I'm torn about how to quilt it. I had planned to work on my machine quilting, but I go back and forth. My big issue right now is batting. I had planned to quilt this in strips or panels, but I don't want to cut big pieces of batting. I guess that's unavoidable. Anyhow, this mess is in the basement - I mean studio - and I'm working on it. Actually, I'm waiting to sell enough quilt kits on ebay to have enough money to have the sewing machine man come visit my 201. The tension is wonky and I can't seem to get it working right. It's my quilting machine, so I can't start quilting on this mess till it's better.

So that's todays post! More tomorrow!