auntjo

My Trip Around the World quilt is finally done... I just need to decided what I want to call it and how to label it. It was started in 1984 while my divorce was becoming final and I needed something to keep me occupied that I didn't have to spend money on & could just sit on the floor & work on. Fabrics were whatever sewing scraps I had on hand from years of sewing clothes that I had enough of in the colors I decided to use.The pattern was out of a McCalls Craft Magazine.Template squares hand drawn w/ruler& scissor cut from cereal box cardboard. Individual pieces traced around the templates & scissor cut. Center hand pieced with single thread &running stitch in 1984, early ’85. Re-married;moved from Sacramento, CA to Barstow, CA in May, 1985 – center hung on a hanger& packed away in back of a closet. Settled into life w/one D of mine, a D & S of his, & we had 2more sons. Somewhere in there bought theblack for simple single borders & back according to pattern in Barstow whenworking on youngest 2 boys 2[SUP]nd[/SUP] of matching bunk bed quilts (1[SUP]st[/SUP]in 1987 & 2[SUP]nd[/SUP] between 1990-’95). Decided 80” square not big enough, beganresearching ideas for increasing size.
Moved to Mohave Valley, AZ in 1997,joined the Colorado River Quilters Guild & showed the center (which had beenstored since 1985). By Fall, 1999 rethought quilt & proceeded - addingblack piping around “medallion” center, then 7” muslin inner border, 2” red - 2[SUP]nd[/SUP]inner border, and finished w/7” black outside border – all w/mitered corners. In July 2000 found black & whitecheckered backing fabric in quilt shop in Flagstaff while on an NAU outingw/son Doug. Decided to add 10” blackborders to backing square for sizing & interest. Floor basted the layers together (using theinexpensive polyester type batting found in plastic bags at Joanne’s fabrics…) andbasted the quilt onto the hand quilting frame poles. It then hung in our hall gallery “as is”until I took it down in 2009 and actually did the hand quilting after I decidedon how I wanted to quilt the center & had settled on the Celtic Knotpattern and had it drawn to size to fit the muslin border & corners. After completing the main body of quilting& the white inner border I again showed it at the guild and afterexplaining my idea to straight line quilt (like piano keys) went along w/theirrecommendations of cross-hatching the red-black borders. By this time I was beginning to teach myselfmachine quilting having started on my little White “Jeans” Machine, graduatingto a brother 1600 on a 6’-10’ frame and graduating up to a Tin Lizzie Eighteenon a 10’ frame, but being a die hard old fashioned hand quilter, really didwant to finish this one by hand considering it had been done all by hand sofar. It sat a lot while I learned &practiced more machine stuff – both piecing & long-arm quilting. Didall 4 sides of the red/black borders & really didn’t like the finished lookso decided to re-stitch to my original idea of straight lines (Still had timeto have it done for our 25[SUP]th[/SUP] anniversary). Derwin died May, 2011 – a couple weeks afterour 26[SUP]th[/SUP]. It again sat – butthis time folded up in a glass fronted cupboard along w/a few other handstitching projects as I had to return to teaching full-time until I could pull RRretirement at age 60. Moved from AZ backto El Dorado Hills, CA in Sept. 2013. Slowly began to get back into my quilting after the first year or so ofsettling in to a new chapter in my life and decided it would be a good fit inthe living room of that home. Had acouple opportunities to take a hand project out of state for family stuff so itwent & actually got worked on while I was out of my studio & finallyfinished.
I know in my perfectionist, oldschool quilting head, all the things I have done wrong (or - not that they werewrong, but could have been done much better and/or differently) with this quiltas I have learned new ways & sometimes smarter ways to do things, etc… overthe past 30 years. But it is mine, forme, and actually I am quite pleased with how it has come out J