Sewing with Friends

There is nothing more memorable than a day of sewing with friends.  My friend Renee had been given a soiled and tattered quilt that had been made by her sister-in-law's grandmother and she wanted it repaired to give to her daughter. It definitely had been a utility quilt that looked like it had been made from possibly an old sheet and a blanket. After she spent months trying to get inspiration, I showed her a quilt I had made from the Bright Hope Design which had embroidery machine appliqued flowers on it. She decided that it was exactly what the fabrics needed. So she saved what she could of the threadbare original and bought some coordinating fabrics. In the photo below, the original fabrics are the light blocks that have green and blue large floral designs on them and the center green block. The colors were hard to match since they were so faded but the dark blue made the design pop. The binding will be done in this blue so it will pull it all together.

We used scraps form the blocks to make the appliqued flowers. We had 3 embroidery machines set up in my sewing room and were able to make the 16 appliqued blocks in under 2 hours.

 

At the same time, we had 3 sewing machines set up in my dining room to sew the blocks and rows together.

 

 

 

 

It is amazing that in about 5 hours, we were able to make an entire quilt top plus we did stop for a great lunch from Panera's also. I am thinking that I would like to make all my quilt tops this way since it goes so much faster.

The end result is a quilt top that weaves together remnants of a family's heritage into a new design that employs old and new techniques that will last for many generations to come.