Maybe 2 years ago my friend Marsha came to our quilt group meeting and handed me a vintage quilt top.  Said she didn't want it and thought I might like it.  I did!  Marsha was given the quilt top by someone who said it had sat around her home forever until she realized she was never going to finish it, gave it to Marsha, and that's how I ended up with this quilt.  Lucky me!  At first I didn't notice that it was entirely hand-sewn, which accounted for a lot of the unevenness.  But that never bothers me...perfection is over-rated!

When I was preparing the top to be quilted I realized just how poorly it was made, how many ripples, waves, stretched-out blocks there were...I did have second thoughts about putting any time into it at all...but we were in the middle of snowpocalypse and I needed something to do!  (I should have taken a picture of this top before I quilted it...it didn't lay flat and any normal person would have told me to trash it!)

When I first learned to quilt I had two teachers - one insisted everything be done by hand and everything be squared up, measured, pinned and perfect.  The other said things like, "Oh don't worry about that stretchiness, it will quilt out."  She also said, "One or two pins is all you ever need, more than that and you're just wasting time!"  I LOVED her!  I told myself the waves in this quilt would quilt out...doubting it as I said it but guess what?  They did!  

The "puffiness"  in this quilt is not from batting - it's from fabric that was eased around the quilting needle - I love how it makes the quilt look soft and fluffy.  It's warm, too, because I backed it with flannel.

Sewing the binding on was a bit tricky, those curved seams where a challenge and those points - oy vey!  I love how this little quilt turned out - it deserved to be finished!  I don't know how old the top is, maybe 40 or 50 years because of the look of some of those fabrics, but it doesn't have any holes in it and there is only one place where it has a couple of tiny spots - which I would be hard-pressed to find now!

I'm not sure where this quilt will end up but I'm certain it will be loved.  Thanks Marsha!  And thanks Karen!  I'm so glad this quilt found it's way to my home!