Help finishing a quilt left to me
 

Hi Group! I am a new member and just recently started reading. I have been wanting to start quilting for some time now, but have been busy in school and not had the time. I am on the downhill slide of school and hopefully should have much more time from now on for crafty pursuits! I'm a soon to be resident physician in family medicine and will be moving soon once I find out where I will complete my training. Nice to meet ya'll!

Anyway on to my question. My sister in law gave me a bag a few Christmas's ago and said "my grandma was working on this quilt and I thought maybe you could finish it!" (I sew, so I guess she thought I could quilt as well). I took it in hopes I could someday do just that. Her grandmother recently passed and I was thinking I should really finish this for her. I opened it all the way up today and was a bit confused by what I found- of course I was...I don't quilt..yet! I know I will probably have to find an experienced quilter to really help me finish, but I did have one question. Some of the pieces have what appear to be dashed lines that look to be printed on the fabric. I know they aren't part of the printed "design" as such because they look out of place and block a rectangular piece into triangles of different colors. I may be a noob, but my understanding was that you cut pieces and stitch them but these dashed lines are in a quilt top that has already been assembled. So..what are these lines?! I'm attaching a photo that will hopefully illustrate what I mean. Also attaching a pic of the whole thing, just for fun. Any thoughts would be so greatly appreciated.
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~Courtney

Are those areas actually pieced or is this a "cheater quilt". Those lines might indicate where you are supposed to hand quilt.

No the small triangles aren't pieced. Just the various rectangles are pieced. Must be a cheater quilt! I didn't actually even know that existed, but it makes sense!

What does the underside of the quilt look like? If you could post a photo of the wrong side, that would help.

It appears to me that this is a pieced log cabin quilt, but that one of the fabrics used in the piecing was a fabric that was meant to be used as a "cheater". If this is the case, you would ignore those printed black stitches in the cheater fabric.

Are you thinking of quilting this by hand or by machine?

Hi Prism! Thanks for the comment! I added a pic of the wrong side. What you are saying makes sense from looking at the quilt though. I was planning to machine quilt. Unfortunately, like many of my generation, my hand stitching is abysmal. Something I need to work on, but this is perhaps not the project for that..

I think Prism has nailed it, I love the vintage fabrics! What a wonderful quilt! I would ignore the dashed lines and quilt how you like. Maybe Stitch in the Ditch (seam line) or 1/4" on either side of the seam would be easiest.
Your batting will determine how far apart the quilting can be.

Thank you for your help everyone! I will have to decide how to finish it off, but I'll post some pics when I do!

Hi, the quilt is awesome.

Welcome to the board. Not sure what area you live in but you might want to find a local quilt store (LQS) and see what advice they could give you. It is hard sometimes to see things thru photos. The quilt will need a good pressing. So much to learn. I sewed since I was a child but started to wonder into quilting in the 80s. It doesn't look that hard of a quilt with mostly I would stitch in the ditch (SITD: between seams). Your LQS may be able to refer you to someone who could professionally quilt it.

Whatever you decide to do with the quilting, don't wash the top before quilting it! It will become a string- laden mess that will require a lot of trimming before you can do anything with it!
With that being said, please keep us posted on the end result.
Congratulations on completing your schooling :thumbup:

Too bad you couldn't see the pics she did post. On the backside photo, you can clearly see the little triangles are cheaters.

Its lovely, and the dashed lines look like they were printed on the fabric - they are charming. I agree with Maniacquilter2, if you bring it to a quilting or sewing shop, someone there might be happy to help you figure out what and how to sew it and finish it.

Thanks all! I was just thinking last night about whether or not it had been pre-washed- I obviously have no way of knowing. But you have a great point- that would all fray like mad if I did, so thank you for saving me from that mess! I think I will definitely go to the local quilting shop and see what help I can get.

Welcome to the board from Gulf of Mexico, Corpus Christi, Tx.