Saturday, November 12, 2016

Spinning Spools Quilts aka Frankie and the Mini

We are had a wonderful time on vacation last week.  Visiting our kids is so enjoyable - we look forward to spending time catching up on each other's lives and just sharing some time together. Part of our time was spent in Washington with our daughter Tracy and her family.  We enjoyed several Monopoly games, as well as Scrabble, and we have had fun reading stories and spending time with our granddaughter as well.

While we were there, we actually got to sleep under a couple of the quilts I've made for her!  Both are  now in need of a bit of repair.  One I took home with me, and I'll show you later as I get it back into good shape.  The other one I was able to fix while I was there.  She calls this one Frankie because it has been patched in a rather haphazard way due to a tear in the back!  I left that as is, but needed to stitch some seams that have popped.

This is the quilt I made for her when she was 2 years old (in 1988), so it is now 28!  Technically it is actually not quilted, but tied.  Those bias seams don't always hold up well in a tied quilt, if the quilt gets pulled the thread will break.  All of the fabric is in good shape, though and there were only a few bad seams.

Still pretty after all these years!  The binding is pretty much shot, though.  I put an extra wide bias binding on this quilt - it finishes at an inch across!
Maybe I should just take the whole thing apart and put a new backing on it and machine quilt it this time.  I'll have to think about that.  Maybe next summer.
When I was making this quilt I read an article in a quilting magazine about a quilter who made a miniature version of each quilt she made.  After making this miniature quilt I decided I wasn't going to do that!  Those miniature blocks (2 inches square and hand quilted) took almost as long to make as the 6 inch blocks in the larger quilt!  I love it as a keepsake, though - It looks so cute in my sewing room.  I was a fairly new quilter when I made both of these quilts, so they hold some happy memories for me!

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