Gifting quilts

We creatives have a term, knit-worthy, or quilt-worthy, or really anything handmade- worthy. Too much time and effort goes into making something by hand to have it be not well received. Sometimes you only learn who is worthy after you have given the gift. Those people go on the never again list. But sometimes you know before hand that a gift will be received with love and respect for all the hard work.

Just as I was finishing this quilt I heard of friends who were about to have a baby girl.  Well, Ramona Rose has been born!This quilt deserved some hand embroidery on the back as well. Not all labels get that treatment. Rimona is the female version of the Hebrew word rimon, which is a pomegranate. And Rose is a rose, so both are on her label. Sometimes I add the birthday, this time I didn’t.

The best part!  Her parents were thrilled! And looks like Rimona is loving it as well.  I always wash and dry my quilts before giving them away. Especially to new babies, I want the parents to know that these quilts are to be used and that they have already been through the wash once, so they can go through it again and again.

This was a fun quilt and I’m so happy it found a wonderful home.

Meanwhile….time to quilt the #100blocks100days quilt.  My friend Ruth has an amazing longarm machine.  I really don’t want to get hooked on longarming quilts – those machines cost a fortune and take up a lot of room! Of course I can rent time on one, even Ruth offered that, but I’m worried I’ll get ‘hooked’.  I may take her up on it just to try, maybe the Splendid Sampler is the one to do on a long arm.

We are basting the quilt. I usually spray baste my quilts, but Ruth offered and I thought, why not? Give it a try. So we did.She also happened to have some batting that she didn’t want and I was able to buy it at a very reasonable price.

Do you see the blocks in the background on her design wall?  Yup, she is also doing the Splendid Sampler.

It will be fun to compare our quilts when we are done, our colors and design sensibilities are very different.

Here is Ruth basting, she used the longest stitch and quilted every 8-9″ apart. It really did hold the quilt together very well, but the long stitches snagged on my machine, so if I do this again, we will go with shorter stitches. It will take me longer to remove the basting stitches, but will make the quilting easier.

So why not just quilt this on the longarm you ask?

Because I wanted to use my walking foot and do straight stitch quilting. The top is very busy, any fmq would be completely lost, not worth the time. Also I feel that the straight lines reinforce the blocks themselves which are very geometric.

More details and the final result coming up soon.