Tuesday, September 10, 2013

The "Go Green" Quilt

It is unusual for me to post two finishes within the space of one week, but this quilt is "Go Green", a collaborative effort mostly between Jean Vaillaincourt and me. It will be the Sunday raffle quilt at our Belknap Mill Quilter's Guild quilt show on October 5th & 6th. It is a testimony to the fact that a simple design, when nicely crafted, becomes a beautiful quilt!


Here I was trimming off the excess backing and batting on my wonderful driveway with my kneeling pad. The design is a simple rail fence with two slab borders with a cornerstone. The quilt is 66" x 84".
The blocks finished at three inches square.


The blocks were strip-pieced with three strips, going from light to medium to dark in a gradation and each strip was cut at 1 1/2 inches wide by the width of the fabric.



Cut three strips and sew them together the long way, then press and cut the blocks at three and a half inches; what could be easier? Well, you do need 432 blocks, set 18 by 24, so it takes a while!


We opened  up the participation to the whole guild but only got one or two gals to make blocks. Out of 120 members, we were disappointed, but Jean and I made lots of blocks over the course of several months. She did a fabulous job of assembling the blocks and putting the borders on the flimsy, everything is so straight and true! Good job, Jean!


I made the backing from random greens from my stash and I cannot recall if those are fat quarters or half yard pieces, but I think that they were fat quarter sized. It never even made a dent in my greens, LOL!


I put the binding on the quilt, sewing it on by machine and hand hemming it down on the back. The binding is a bias-printed stripe in greens and cream with a touch of eggplant for an accent.


It really just glows!


Even the backing looks nice, which surprised me greatly because I used all my "ugly" greens, LOL!


Linda Monasky of The Bear Paw Gallery donated her quilting on her longarm and it is beautifully done. She made an edge-to-edge, hand-guided design of loops and ivy vines that is sewn in an olive thread. Thank you so very much, Linda, you're terrific!!!!!


By the way, our federal government, the IRS, does NOT allow any business write-off for the time and effort that Linda put in to do this because it is her labor for charity and not materials. That seems so unfair to me. I hope you will consider using her on your next quilt top.


So we worked on it most of last winter and I plan on buying raffle tickets!!!


 Happy sewing!



8 comments:

Janet O. said...

Lovely quilt, Vic! I just made that little rail fence table topper from plaid shirts and my blocks were exactly that size. I can't imagine making a large quilt out of them. (Can you tell I'm not a very patient person?)
You two did a beautiful job. Too bad more women were not willing to help out.
Hope it raises a hefty amount for your group! : )

straythreads said...

great quilt and great greens!!

cityquilter grace said...

that is gorgeous vic....wonderful job...while lying there in the driveway it has a shimmer effect to it because of the color placement, like waves....very nice indeed!

Beth in MN said...

Vic, The quilt is absolutely stunning. Rail fence was always what I taught in beginning quilting classes because it always turns out but the variety of fabrics in "Go Green" is awesome. Sorry you and your friend didn't get more helpers.
Hugs

Helen in the UK said...

This is looking wonderful! So sorry that more members didn't contribute ... how difficult is it to make a rail fence block???? Not very! Hope it raises a lot for the chosen charity :)

Chris Jensen said...

Beautiful quilt. Wish I were in your guild so I could buy tickets. Some simple, yet so beautiful.

Great Job, Great quilting. Too bad more did not participate.

Chris Jensen

Nann said...

Nice! The green ripples across the quilt. Great pieced back, too.
Why didn't guild members help more with blocks? Certainly easy to do!

Lorene Holbrook said...

I LOVE two color quilts! this is stunning!!!

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