Two Roz Quilts!

   

I finally finished both of the quilts I made from the squares my sister Rosalind started.  She started a hand stitched cathedral window quilt.  When she passed away the pieces sat until her former husband passed away and the new wife found them and sent them to me.

   

I broke the pieces up into two smaller quilts.  I used pink sashes to bring out the pink colors and to honor her nickname, Pinky.  The green border brought out some of the green colors in the squares.

My niece had originally started a similar quilt at the same time.  She and Roz were close.  She never finished her quilt, either.  Because I was making two quilts out of these squares, I decided to give one to Natalie and keep one for me.

This one is the one for Natalie.

   

   


The only real difference between the two quilts is that my quilt has the square where Roz wrote her name and that of her husband, Arnold, in pencil. I backstitched over her writing.

   

   
 
I'm getting better at free motion quilting.  Or maybe I am just getting faster. Either way, I finished that and sewed on the border.

I sent Natalie her quilt and told her she can't open it until her birthday.  I folded up my quilt until I know what to do with it.  I don't want it to get ruined.  But putting it away doesn't make sense either.

   

So I'll think about it for a bit.

More on Rosalind's quilt

Rosalind started this cathedral window quilt and I am going to finish it.  It won't be exactly as she planned but I wanted to highlight her work, not mine.

   

I found one square that Roz had written on with pencil.  She wore her name and birthdate on  corner.

   

Her husband was Arnold Yasui. She had written his name and birthdate on the opposite corner.

   

I used an off white thread to backstitch those details. This square will be the center of my quilt.

   

My sister's nickname was Pinky. and the colorful fabrics she chose had various shades of pink.  I chose a pink fabric with tones from the "window" pieces.  This became the sashing between the squares.

I thought too much pink would take away from the squares, so I picked a green fabric that worked with the green of the "windows".

   

I need to add a back piece, some batting and start quilting.

Rosalind's Quilt

My sister Rosalind started a quilt. It is a cathedral window pattern and is all hand stitched.  It is made with triangles of a light fabric.  You fold the edges of the triangles over a square of a patterned fabric, to sew it to the fabric in a diamond shape.  Like this.

   

Roz hand stitched everything.  I don't know if she even owned a sewing machine.

Then she passed away and the pieces were forgotten in a storage space.  Her husband remarried and then he got cancer and passed away.  His widow contacted me and as she went through the storage unit and has Kindly sent me several boxes of Rosalind's keepsakes.  The quilt squares were in one of the boxes.

I decided the quilt needed to be finished.

   

The finished squares had a lot of issues in terms of evenness.  I tried to fix them with ironing.  This was minimally effective.

   

There were over 100 squares.  The original pattern called for all the finished squares to be sewn together and then continue adding in the colorful squares. There was enough fabric to do so and I thought about finishing it that way.  ButI didn't want to hand stitch a quilt that was going to end up King size.   If I machine sewed it, there would be an obvious difference between the triangles.  Also, it would be more my quilt, at the end, then the quilt Roz started.

   

I decided to keep the squares as she made them and assemble it as I would any other quilt.

I also chose to take the advice of the folks at my local fabric store, Web Fabric.  They suggested  breaking the quilt up into two smaller quilts.  It would be much easier to do the quilting on my regular sewing machine.  It meant that I could make the second quilt for my niece.  She and Roz had started the quilts together and she was a thrilled when I asked if she wanted a finished piece.

I chose some pink fabric to be the sashing between the squares and to try to even them up. My sister's nickname was Pinky, so this was an homage to that.  I'll get to that next.