An Unnecessary Quilt

After finishing two super-queen quilts in January it seemed a good time to do some sorting of fabric. Both large quilts were designed using yardage that had appeared in other quilts over the past decade. I don't do 'scrapy' in the sense of random; I select fabrics from my considerable 'stash'  that have common colorways and themes. 

In the sorting process I pressed and neatly folded fabrics I thought two quilter friends might enjoy. 

I took my lines of now vintage Moda fabrics from the stacks in the drawers, smoothed and admired them, put them neatly away again.

The final sorting involved true 'scraps,' partially sewn units, and some surplus blocks for other projects long since completed.

Some of these 'leftovers' were from a quilt started years ago in an attempt to replicate blocks pieced by my g-grandmother. During our years in WY I salvaged the best of g-grandmother Eliza's hand-stitched blocks from a worn quilt, hand-quilted them onto a soft muslin backing and had several professionally framed. 

For her quilt, Eliza used pieces cut from worn shirts and aprons.

Inspired by this I gathered cotton shirts from the local charity shop and began the rather tedious process of cutting them into appropriately sized pieces.

The project was interrupted by our retirement move to Kentucky and lay abandoned through several house renovations and finally the construction of our present house.

It was during the winter of covid lockdown that I resurrected the completed blocks and constructed a quilt using the quilt-as-you-go method. 

Daughter G. admired the finished quilt and it went to live at her house.

Fast forward to the past January when my rummaging turned up four completed quilt blocks and a neat assortment of already cut to size components.

I was struck with the notion to do something with the bits and pieces, even to the point of gathering a few more charity shop shirts. 

Halfway through this salvage project I was 'over' it--asking myself why--with a collection of beautiful new fabrics--was I committing hours to a quilt that was going to be rather random and  gaudy.

Having determined that I wouldn't buy any new fabric to finish the thing, I sliced up a beige sheet for the sashing and a dark blue one for borders. 

It was machine quilted by the woman who does all my 'everyday' quilts. I bound it, folded it and dumped it unceremoniously on a stack of winter bedding in the guest room.

Several weeks later when J. had a respiratory flu, he was shivering one evening and I brought up the 'shirt-tail' quilt.

J. who almost never comments on my quilting projects, was intrigued by the patterns I had achieved with salvaged materials.

So, there it is. Its the sort of quilt one might consign to a cabin, summer camp or camper [none of which we now own] or throw over a porch chair or bench. 

I noted that in the decade or more since I started the first quilt the quality of used cotton shirts has declined.

Here is the one that I began in 2009 and [finally] finished in 2021..

A close-up of my rather cobbled quilt-as-you-go effort. 

Below are the links to the original vintage blocks and my efforts to replicate them; I've attached them to this post mostly so that I can find them if I want to look back at my efforts.

The woman who does my utility quilting is happy to accept fabric scraps, leftover finished blocks, even components of blocks that have been cut to size but not used. Several of her clients pounce on these, adding them to their own projects.

I ruthlessly gathered up such as had been too long on my cupboard shelf and they have gone away for someone else to utilize.

https://wwwmorningsminion.blogspot.com/2009/08/salvaged-treasures.html

https://wwwmorningsminion.blogspot.com/2021/03/a-project-too-long-in-doing-done.html