Thursday, March 17, 2011

the hubby's other quilt and a winner

I forgot yesterday to pick a winner for the scrap triangles.  Since Liri was the only one who wanted them, she gets them!  (I bet Flit is doing somersaults right now!)

A while back I started thinking about all those quilts I posted about over on APQ.  Those of you who came over here with me have seen them, but I think maybe it's time to re-post about them.

So we'll start where I started last time, the hubby's first quilt.


This is a quilt my mom and I made for my hubby, before he was my hubby.  We'd been dating a while and I knew he had a comforter (oh, dread the idea!) on his bed that had been (gasp!) given to him by his ex-girlfriend!  I needed to remedy that situation FAST!

My mom had been on a Mariner's Compass kick about the time I found this pattern, so she was more than willing to lend a hand.  I know the pattern came from a book, but I have no idea which one and if you've seen my mom's library of quilt books, you'd understand why I'm not asking her.  She'd look, but probably lose a week of sewing time in the process!

The original was on a white background and she thought I was nuts when I chose the gold.  This was the first quilt I'd made that didn't have a pale background and I love how it turned out.  I've made quite a few others with non-white backgrounds since this because it turned out so well.

Many of the fabrics from the compasses come from my mom's ginormous stash.  But we bought quarter yard pieces along the way, too.  While vacationing (with both parents and future hubby), my mom and I even picked up some of the fabrics without the hubby knowing what was going on.  (He was busy fishing and trying to avoid biddy germs.)

I chose and cut all the fabrics, trying to stay with darker, more masculine colors and prints.  (My hubby is definitely not the type you would give a quilt with flowery prints on it to.)  But my mom did all the sewing.  At the time, I did have my own machine, but had limited experience with sewing even straight seams and this pattern required inset seams AND curves.  Yikes!  So it was a team effort.

It was quilted by a professional longarmer, but since my mom coordinated all that, I don't know who.  It's an allover stipple.  I like the look of that, no matter how much anyone might roll their eyes at how simple it is.

I gave it to him for our first Christmas together.  Well, I gave him the TOP.  I'm not sure he understood exactly what I was doing (maybe he thought me a tad crazy, but he'd never seen the whole quilt construction process before - now he's an unwilling pro), but it wasn't done in time.    To add to the confusion, he had pneumonia and was quite sick and generally out of it that day.  But once I got it explained and finally quilted, it went on the bed and hasn't left since.

Currently it is an extra layer under his new quilt.  This summer, I think it will probably find a temporary home in the closet.

It's well worn.  The top, up where your head touches it, is worn away to the batting in places and much of the binding has worn through at the edges.  It's definitely been well-loved.  But that's what I want from a quilt.  Love it.  Use it up.  I don't mind an excuse for another project!

I haven't been in my sewing room much this week, so I don't have much else to share.  I hope to remedy that this weekend!

Happy quilting,
Katie

7 comments:

Marsha B said...

That is a great quilt with a wonderful story! I like the colors, it is a man's quilt most definately. You and your mom did a great job on it. And congratulations to Liri and Flit, I can tell they are both jumping up and down about the win!

Sandy said...

I enjoyed the retelling of this quilt story. It is still a great looking quilt, and will be a wonderful blanket to pull out of the closet from time to time.
Congratulations to Liri (and Flit).

Sandy

Liriopia said...

Ooo, ooo, ooo! I like your quilt, Katie, it has such pretty stars on it! Thank you, thank you, thank you for the pretty triangle squares! (Flit, please calm down. Your shaking the windows with all that jumping!) I wanna start the I Spy today! (Not today, I have dresses to make. Now stop moping, we don't even have the HST's yet.)
Katie, thanks so much for the HST's. I think I know what Flit has in mind and, as you can see, she is quite excited by the prospects, LOL.

Liri

---"Love" said...

I do remember that beautiful quilt from APQ days, and it is just as lovely now. Quite an accomplishment, I'd say. ---"Love"

Beth said...

The quilt is a beauty. Love the gold background. Thanks for reposting it, because I hadn't seen it before. Hope you get to sew this weekend.

Connie204 said...

That is really a beautiful quilt and I do remember.

Lynette said...

What a gorgeous quilt, with a very fun story. Absolutely *love* the gold background.