Eva's Vintage Embroidery Quilt is FINISHED!!!

In early 1958, my mother in law found out that that she was 

expecting the first of their nine children.

She immediately began working on the most beautiful (and frankly perfect) 

embroideries to make a special gift for that child.

(Her work is amazing!  This is actually the back side of the lamb.)

Eva grew up in East Germany.

She went to school there and became and expert seamstress.

(her final was to make a perfectly tailored ladies suit...she passed!)

Her stem stitch is so perfect and smooth.

I only wish I could do work like hers!

These embroideries have been sitting in a box for 57 years.

Last year, she asked me what she should do with them and I promptly took them from her

 and told her that I would take good care of them. :)

I decided that 1930's reproduction prints would suit this quilt.

Sweet and simple 16 patches would be the perfect compliment to her expert handwork,

I didn't have a plan as I began, but sure enough the quilt took on a life of it's own.

Pinwheels were the final border.  Sweet, simple and just what the quilt needed!

It was so exciting to quilt this myself!

My only regret is that I didn't double the batting :(

It was really fun to decide the different quilting motifs.

I used rulers for the orange peels and the crosshatching.

The rest was free motion quilting on my longarm.

For the backing I used some 1970 vintage yellow rose buds.

(I love that things from my childhood are now considered "Vintage")

For the binding, I happened to have some yellow yardage from the collection I used for the quilt!

Perfection!

It was so much fun to make this quilt and my mother in law loved it!

Some days, being a quilter is just plain the BEST thing EVER!!!

....the only problem is that I TOTALLY messed up the year on the label!!!

I gave it to her for Christmas 2015!!

EEEKK!!!!

Eva's Vintage Embroidery Quilt

After the washing...

This is a Riley Blake print. Everytime I see a humming bird, I think of my Grandmother, Marion Smith Nelson.

My grandmother and grandad, Marion & Bob Nelson 

I Love this picture, they look so fancy!

 Grandmother was always dressed perfectly!
Every time I finish a quilt I think about how much she would LOVE them.   My grandparents were my biggest fans... no matter what I was up to! ;)

Vintage Eva is finished and in the washer :)

Binding with bobby pins, as usual :)

This is a picture of my dented, calloused right middle finger. It is from blind stitching the bindings of my 6 finished quilts. Anna's should be back from the quilters any day :) I have two tops finished and will get them quilted over the next few weeks. Maybe one tomorrow if I can do it. I am thinking tomorrow is a good day to make a cover/cozy for my sewing machine.

Here it is all done and hanging on the fence. I really love it! I'll take more pictures after it gets out of the dryer. I had another close up of it, but it seems to be missing...

Here is the missing close up :)  If you look closely, you can see my name :)

As far as it's getting today...

I decided to try roses on the quilt today. I did a rose on each of the squares. It looks pretty cool on the minky. This minky is green... I am guessing the sun light is making it so greyish :)

The top.

The minky is the same color as the green in the blocks. It's SUPER cute!

I am SO tired that I felt it better to stop sewing. I am so tired I could cry at any moment-kind of tired. It's also the "can't form cohesive sentences" tired ;)

A new quilt

This fabric was in the 12# grab bag from The Fat Quarter Shop. I love the peaches and greens. They are so happy with a bit of a vintage flare. It was my first attempt at fussy cutting. There was a panel that came in the 1# panel grab bag. It had pears, humming birds and dragon flies.
I have wanted to try this quilt pattern. It was trickier that I thought it would be. After sewing the first three rows together and having them not match up, I started to pin and that corrected the problem.
The squares are 4.5" and the sashing is 2.5".

I started cutting this one out Saturday morning. I had the rows sewn by Saturday afternoon. I finished sewing it all up today.

Here is the beginning of the quilt sandwich.

I really love how it looks all pinned up :)

I pin basted it while the we watched Horton Hears a Whoo for FHE.

I decided to start a bit of quilting tonight. I hope to get this all finished tomorrow and off it the mail. It will be my first quilt that I give away. Wish me luck!

I bought the back for this quilt at Gracie Lou's today along with the back for the Pink and Grey Angel quilt.