It was inspired by a Craftsy course I took online called "Design It, Quilt It." The funny thing was, I had already started to talk to my friend Cheri about designing quilts using recycled linens, denims and thrift store finds when I signed up for the course. I had no idea that the instructor, Cindy Needham, had been creating quilts out of vintage linens for a long time.
I purchased a vintage tablecloth with hand-embroidered detail in each corner, probably dating from the fifties, on E-bay. (Don't even let me get started on how hard it is to resist online auctions for vintage linens, lace etc. The best thing to do is never log on and start looking or you will be lost...and broke...)
As I spread it out to inspect it, my eye fell on the Dresden plates I was creating for a crazy quilted project.
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| Crazy Quilt and Dresden Plates |
With little ado, the tablecloth hijacked my plates, and now I have to make some more for the original project.
I added an 18 inch wide cotton border to the tablecloth, and english paper pieced the dresden plates for the centre of the cloth and the borders. They are hand appliqued to the quilt. A vintage doily was added to the centre plate. (A kind donation by my friend Sandra!)
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| Quilting "Faded Roses" |
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I quilted it on a domestic machine, and tried machine trapunto quilting on the fans and all the feather and flower motifs. I was quite surprised at how much volume the fans gained with the trapunto, they are quite fat!
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| Trapunto detail |
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| Quilting detail, embroidered motifs |
When I basted the quilt for quilting, I had no tablecloth clamps and tried another method to secure the backing to my folding table. It did not go so well, and the backing was a bit overstretched in the end, which led to wavy borders. I think that this might settle with blocking, but I had no time to block the quilt, and no place. My house is quite tiny. The only place I could even lay it out was my bed! I had made a goal to finish the quilt for our local quilt show, and did so about 1 day prior to hanging it!
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| Faded Roses, Finished. |
Much to my surprise, it won the ribbon for Best In Show. Even more to my surprise, the quilt our embroidery and quilting groups made for my friend Sandra, as a wedding present, ribboned as well. It got a second place ribbon in the medium sized quilt category.
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| Best in Show Ribbon |
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| A Victorian Romance, design by myself, blocks by the members of the Texada Embroider's Guild and the Texada Quilter's Guild. Quilted by myself. |
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