I know that technically, this quilt might not be "antique" (100 or more years old), but it's close! The top was made by my great grand aunt who passed in 1945, so at the very least, it's 73 years old. The pattern is Grandmother's Flower Garden.
My backing fabric is a tone-on-tone white, 108" wide piece. I did launder it before I started. The batting is Warm & Natural, off the roll from my local quilt shop.
The fabrics are cottons, flower sacks, and something silky. That's just in the bit that I've quilted. Who knows what other fabrics are in it? I guess I'll find out when I get there. Some of the hexies are even pieced with seams running through the middle of them!
The yellow centers and the two surrounding rows are what forms a "flower". The green hexagons (hexies) are the path between the flowers.
I don't have a photo of the entire quilt...yet, but here is a shot of it as I was loading it on my quilting frame. The bottom edge wasn't pinned yet which is why it looks wrinkly.
I've started on hand-quilting it and have made 2 complete "passes" and started on my third. A pass is filling in the available workable area from center to left then center to right (or vise versa).
The first pass, took care of the bottom yellow border and some of the green path hexies. I'm using
Meandering Leaves as the stencil for the yellow border and I'm stitching with a green from Essential Threads. For the green hexies, I'm using the 6-petaled flower from the Dritz stencil
Cornered Feathers 4" and I'm using Gütermann thread in a variegated yellow.
For every green hexie, I'm putting money in a jar. A penny each for the first 4, the 5th is a nickel, then pennies until the 10th which is a dime, the 25th is a quarter and so on. The money that I save up will go toward my new quilting studio (see previous post for more info).
The flowers are getting quilted in simple arcs which creates 12-petaled flowers. I'm using the yellow Gütermann thread for these, too.
I've completed 3 of the 5 flowers on the first row of the quilt and I'm getting close to the last of the green hexies heading left from the center. It will be nice to get to the left border just for a color change.
Happy Stitching!
Stacy
