Monday, April 5, 2010

M's Show and Tell

This quilt belongs to my husband's nephew's wife! Funny how quilting can bring distant relations together! M is an awesome quilter and has a great sense of style! I love this spring quilt and I love how she was persistent until she got it how she wanted it! Wow! What a difference good quilting makes! Here's her story:

This is a quilt I made from a kit sold in a nearby store which I fell in love with. I love the reds in a spring quilt! It's unexpected - but so cute! I also loved that it has a little bit of everything in it - it has pieced blocks, appliqued blocks, even one paper-piecing block (the basket). All of them have embroidery on them which really adds to the sparkle (and learning) - and when I saw it, I just knew I had to make it.
I spent a couple of months putting the top together and was thrilled with it - it was my best work yet and I love it so much. I knew that I didn't want to quilt it myself because I am not experienced enough at that and did NOT want to ruin my favorite quilt, so I took it to a lady who has done several quilt for me "edge to edge" and has done a beautiful job. I asked her if she could customize this one - do special stuff inside the blocks (a shadow effect on the applique blocks, and some fun stuff on the shoefly blocks) - she said she'd done it before and could do that for me but it would cost extra. I was okay with that because this quilt was special to me (for some reason) and I really wanted it done well.

Anyway, here are some pics of the work she did. I was pretty bummed when I got it back (after paying $96.00 for the quilt work!!) - and it was pretty much a horrible quilting job. I don't know much about quilting, but even I could see that this wasn't a good job. I was really depressed for a couple of days, then, I got myself together and got my unpicker out. I unpicked the whole entire thing and then, took it to a "professional quilter" to try again.

Here are more pics of the finished job. It was absolutely beautiful and exactly what I'd hoped for!! (and I only got charged $24.00 for the whole thing!) - I think she felt bad for me.
So, anyway - just finished binding it last week (and I did the curvy edge this time - for extra perfection) - and I LOVE LOVE LOVE it.
It was worth every unpicking moment because I wouldn't have ever been as happy looking at it on the wall if I'd left it like it was.
I guess the moral of this story is be careful who quilts your precious quilts!! Make sure they know what they're doing - pictures would be good as evidence!
Bunny from the first quilter.
Bunny after the second quilter.
First quilter

Second quilter.
Love the yo-yo's and the basket!

Here's the back of the quilt. Well done M!!! Love it!

3 comments:

pcb said...

oooh I love that! I have the perfect place for it on my stairs!

Anonymous said...

I am sooooooo happy it's fixed!!! It's absolutely beautiful now! When I first saw it I wanted to cry because it was so badly put together, but now I would be weeping tears of joy because it is just amazing now!
Sooooo much better!

Clear Aire said...

Oh...ps: the above comment was me :)