When the hub's grandmother passed away last year (Memaw's mom), she had some unfinished quilt tops left. As a quilter, I know she would have finished them if she could, because nobody puts so much work into a quilt top to leave it unfinished. The top is the labor-intensive part.
So, the hub's aunt Judy (Memaw's sister) asked if I would finish up some of her quilts. Of course I said yes. Honestly, I believe there must be an unspoken agreement among quilters - please don't leave my quilts unfinished. Judy sent me three quilt tops and a table runner, with an offer that Memaw and I could keep whatever we wanted and send back what we didn't. I picked out a quilt top and so did Memaw, then I set out to finish a quilt top and the table runner for Judy.
Because the hard part (the piecing) was finished, I could get a little more creative with the quilting. I did rows of leaves in the vertical sashing, flowers in the setting stones, and small loopy stipple in the individual "doll" boxes (but not the dolls themselves). The process took much more time than I originally thought, and by the end that quilt was getting heavy!
I was lucky to find some extra plaid fabric in Memaw's stash; the same plaid the boy dolls were made of. I used that plaid fabric for the binding.
The back was a solid blue-grey sheet from Target. Here you can see the leaves and loopy stipple, which created "frames" around each doll block.
Not-so-hidden heart. It's tucked down on the bottom right doll block, Judy!
And here is the table runner! Memaw and I could instantly picture it on Judy's table. I had to use my loopy stipple on this runner because the fabric didn't want to lay flat. Memaw had pieced the runner by hand, and it felt sacrilegious to machine quilt it, but I needed the stipple to camouflage some unevenness.
Another not-so-hidden heart. I love how this one turned out. So loopy and carefree.
The backing is a sheet and the binding is from leftovers of Memaw's Swoon Quilt. Here is my quilt-holder-helper. Britton loves holding the quilts for me, and then switching to taking the pictures. Maybe I've got a mini-quilter in the making?
Britton also helped me pack up the quilts to send back to Judy. I've still got the remaining two quilts to finish, as well as a quilt top that Memaw gave our Memaw (yes, we call them both the same name) a while ago. Eventually, all the quilts will be finished, as they should be.
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