First February Finish-The Granddaughter Quilt #1

The Granddaughter Quilt #1 is my February finish for Country Threads Dirty Dozen UFO Challenge. Leave it to Eunice to escape from the time-out corner to let me know that it was time to finally finished the Granddaughter Quilt #1 which has been a UFO since 1999. I started quilting in 1996 and after I have made both of my sons’ bed quilts plus starting to accumulate a nice collection of fabric especially after getting a job at the local quilt shop, I had visions of making quilts for my future granddaughters and grandsons. Never mind that my boys were only in middle school and high school back then and definitely weren’t dating, but it was something I felt a quilter should make.

Although the flimsy was finished in 1999, I’m pretty sure I purchased the Jennifer Sampou’s Sweet Rose fabrics before I started working at the quilt shop. I remember seeing Sweet Rose advertised in a quilt magazine and went to Joann’s to look for it. One of the first things I learned as a new quilter was the difference between buying from a chain fabric store and a quilt shop. And another thing to remember was that if you really loved a fabric, and I thought Sweet Rose was the most beautiful fabric with roses, to purchase yardage which I did along with the blue stripe. I didn’t have a pattern in mind until after I started working at the quilt shop and one of the patterns to make with a large focus print was a simple Irish Chain made with plain squares and nine patches. It still is one of my favorite patterns. The red and white fabrics in the nine patches were not from the Sweet Rose collection but from Robert Kaufman and Moda.

I have wanted to finally finish the Granddaughter Quilt #1 (GD#1) since 2022 after the Grandson Quilt #2 and  the Granddaughter Quilt #2 were finished. I had listed all three quilts for the 2022/23 UFO Challenge but didn’t feel like quilting another twin size quilt when it was GD#1’s turn. I committed to finishing it for this year’s Challenge when the number came up so that’s how the GD#1 was finally finished with Eunice, my quilt alter-ego who always sew the right thing in my Studio, reminding me. Ironically, I did purchase the light blue backing fabric from Joann’s in 2022. I machine quilted with CT Essential Thread in a light blue with horizontal and vertical straight line quilting with crosshatch diagonal quilting. After the horizontal and vertical straight line quilting was done and while I was quilting  the diagonal lines, I was thinking that the quilting was going well, better than the Granddaughter Quilt #2, and  I thought too soon. After two rounds of the diagonal lines, the quilting felt too tight and some of the stitches were popping when I ran my hand over it.  There could be several reasons why this happened; it was Quilt Karma for finishing Granddaughter #2 quilt first, the bobbin thread was too tight or quilting with ricochet diagonal lines which is when you quilt the first diagonal line until the end of the row and then pivot the quilt to quilt the next diagonal line until the end again and so on until there’s no more space left to quilt. I spent several hours removing all of the diagonal quilting lines and redid the diagonal lines but with no ricocheting and quilting one row at a time. I also made sure whenever I started a new bobbin to check the tension to make sure the thread wasn’t tight. I did a combination meander and straight line quilting for the border. The binding was always going to be the blue stripe and has been sitting in the binding drawer for all these years. I hand stitch the binding down which is what I would have done if the quilt was finished earlier. I did check the Granddaughter Quilt #2 to make sure the binding was hand stitched also and it was. The Granddaughter Quilt #1 measures 63”x86” and is the smallest out of the four quilts by a few inches.

I am pretty sure this is going to be my biggest finish this year even though there are a lot of month left to sew. It was pretty ambitious of me, as a 20th Century new quilter to want to make four twin size quilts for future 21st Century grandkids. Two of the quilts were made from Jennifer Sampou fabrics and all were simple makes which is still my favorite way for quilting. One thing I very rarely do now is making quilts with borders. When Julie Herman’s book Skip the Borders came out in 2012, I fully embraced  this modern concept. It’s so much easier for machine quilting.

Here’s the quilt quartet, almost twenty-five years in the making, not a saga, just my determination to finish them despite only having one darling Granddaughter. To me, the fabrics are timeless and I still have these fabrics in my stash. The two granddaughter quilts will be going to the GP House and it’s time to look for a chest or hutch to hold her growing quilt collection.

With my February Dirty Dozen Challenge project a big finish, I am looking forward to having the rest of the month to work on current projects and maybe start new ones. I do have on my must-do plate a request from Demando and my project for the upcoming Villa Rosa Designs Fast & More Fun Blog Hop next month. Eunice is also bugging me with another project and if it’s finished this week, I am sending her to jail. It’s always a battle between Peace and Piece in my quilting mind.

Linking up with: My Quilt Infatuation/NTT