A
few weeks ago I received a surprise package from my cousin Lola. I
opened it and found a quilt top and a few blocks made by our
grandmother, Effie Evitts Hill.
The
top was partially hand stitched with some seams sewn on machine using
several different colors of thread. We don't know when she made it;
it's a mixture of cotton and poly-cotton fabric in red, white, and
blue. If I had to guess, I'd say mid to late 1980's or early 90's.
It
had been washed at some point, which caused quite a few seams to
unravel, as you can see in the photo below. I wanted to keep as much of her work intact as possible,
even though many of the blocks were not square and corners didn't all
line up. It's a big 84” x 90”quilt, and quite a project to
tackle.
I
mended all those torn seams and straightened the blocks as much as I
could without taking the whole thing apart. The inner border is
puckered some because that fabric didn't shrink as much as the cotton
next to it. I had to trim off about 2” around the outer border.
I added flannel batting and plain muslin backing. Fittingly, I used Rockette, my trusty 1960's Singer Rocketeer, for all the stitching. White thread in a triple zig-zag stitch for quilting helped camouflage the uneven seams.
I
only owned one of her quilts, so it's nice to complete another that she
started. It's not perfect, but I don't think she intended it to be.
It was likely a simple bed quilt for personal use, not one to enter
at the county fair.
I
was sewing clothes but not quilting at all when she died in 1992. I
wonder, what would Granny Hill think about me finishing this one?
Thanks Lola, for sharing...it was definitely a challenge!
Sometimes,
good
enough is
good
enough
