2012 was productive....

Repairs were first on my list of things to get done in 2012.  This is a quilt that my Mother did early in the 1950's.  All of the brown/crème stripe material has started to disintegrate.  I had an old sun-faded house dress from the same time.... cut into the right size squares.... it made a perfect patch.  Watching TV was the perfect time.  My early winter evenings were taken care of.  When finished the new patches matched the old materials. 

Next up was a Thank You gift for the lady that watches Fred, the cat.  She is always there when we get ready to take off on any trip.  A beautiful piece of material for the center from Kauai.  Border material and backing from Reno.  The pink border is actually from my own fabric stash. 

Another bright sunshine quilt went home to one of our great friends.  She needed a quilt to brighten the day and to keep her warm with her meals.  Bright pink and yellows.  No way this would not lighten the dark. 

Every now and then a little color added to the border.

 

I had a pile of tops that needed to get finished into quilts.  Those were on my must do list for the year.  By keeping at it I was able to make it through most of them and along the way they all found new homes.

Several sets of orphan blocks from Lisa were redesigned into a couple of tops with some of my own materials.  They had been finished for a long time and just needed backings.  A couple of quilt tops and along with a stack of other fabric pieces that needed matching..... a trip to Omaha to see my God-daughters solved the problem.  Lisa had materials to match the front of one of the tops.  None of those pieces were quite big enough to make the total back but with some strip piecing......another quilt was quilted, bound, and on it's way back to Lisa's.  Annie immediately claimed it!

A second quilt was finished and off in the mail at the same time.  This is a 'handkerchief' from the 1876 Exposition in Philadelphia for the American Centennial.  Keeping with the theme, all of the materials are from the same time era.  The backing was a single piece of material that needed just a little more.  The blue stripes on either end were the added pieces.  Straight line diagonal quilting with a twist in the center that sent the quilting the other direction. 

Home sweet Home!  This one is mine!

 A trip to Kauai brought back material for our niece's quilt.  She choose the material and the pattern.  A whole lot of "squares".....made for a really great use of the difference in pattern and colors.  I love the way that it came out.  The back used just a little of the material leftover to add some interest.  

 There was enough of the blocks from the front to make an accompanying throw.  More of the dark brown to fill in and using the brown, pink and white fabric made for a Neapolitan ice cream backing.

 

 Another set of orphan blocks.... with really wide borders.  The last border is actually two strips of the same material.  There was really a lot of material cut into the same size strips.  Sewn together there was enough to make it around the quilt twice.   The backing was a 'cheater cloth' print but it was not quite long enough, but that was fixed by adding a couple of borders. 

 Another red, white and blue quilt was made from the left over stars and material from another project long ago.  Finished up and ready to quilt....but the backing was just a little short.  Lucky that I had some red, white, and blue material that had a 4th of July motif.  A few stripes later and the backing was ready to go.  Quilted and finished, it was ready to go to a new home. 

 Last of the year to be finished.... took the longest.  It had been ready to quilt for a long time.  The batting was actually disintegrating.  I took the whole quilt apart and decided to make it larger by adding several new borders.  But when it came to putting it in the frame, unfortunately, the quilt would not lay flat and the backing as too narrow. 

The first problem was the top not laying flat.  That turned out to be because the borders were not the right length.  I took off the last three borders.  They were washed several times again, dried, and re-measured.  As you can see they were not exactly correct.  But by adding more of the narrow red (from a different material) and a lot of the solid green..... the only thing that was done to the last border was moving the mitered seams slightly and it all fit together perfectly (finally). 

 The backing was made wider by adding a strip of log cabin blocks.  I had to make 5 more blocks but I have more than enough narrow strips already cut.  Put together and adding two sets of stripes made the backing wide enough. It looked great on our bed all thru the month of December.