A quilt challenge that ends up teaching an old Dog and new tricks Posted by Virginia "Ginnie" Leiner on June 18, 2020 at 7:30pm View Blog Remember my Floral print quilt challenge I gave myself the year we were remodeling the attic and I was stuck making quilt tops in the dining room in summer 2018? I wanted to prove that design is EVERYTHING in quilting; that you could take the same fabrics and work them into different designs and get totally different looking quilts. The fabrics were important to the quilt but the design is what made the difference. Well, here are the results of that challenge. The three quilts were the one I made for The Westmoreland Museum of American Art Big Art Party in 2018, called "The Big Art Party Goes Green," the quilt I made for the Westmoreland Historical Society Education Center Grand Opening in 2019, called "Garden Window," and the third quilt came back from the long armer this week, I have just bound it and it is on the bed in the guest room. I am calling it "Floral Challenge." I has 1600 2-1/2 inch blocks. Simple pattern, huge quilt! See the other two quilts below and see th difference pattern design makes. They were all three made with the same 22 floral prints. So what did I learn from the challenge and what did I learn from each quilt? Here are my thoughts. 1. Quilting in the dining room is not a bad thing if a) you are not having dinner guests and b) you plan to make just quilt tops, not the entire quilt. I got all three tops done the summer of 2018 in the dining room. 2. Quilting takes time and each quilt will come to it's own purpose in its own time. I started donating one quilt a year to non-profits for fundraising purposes and these were the first two donated. The Westmoreland Museum of American Art is my employer. I run their database and work in the development/membership department. We have tons of beautiful handmade American quilts in our collection. This one of mine sold for $600 at the silent auction at our annual fundraiser, the Big Art Party, in October 2018. Frankly I was disappointed in the final price. I wanted it to break $1000. It appraised at over $1800.

The Westmoreland Historical Society is where I did my history degree internship in 2004-2005. The second quilt above is called Garden Window and it was for their Education Grand Reopening in 2019. It was raffled off at the event. Both of these quilt I quilted myself and bound in my usual way of bringing the back over to the front.

3. Sometimes old dogs need to learn new tricks. The third quilt in the challenge took the longest time to complete. It sat in my quilt chest for two year until I decided to send it to a long armer for quilting. I did this for a couple reasons. First, it is sooooo big. Truly king size 102 x 102 inches. Quilting it on my home sewing machine was gonna be a challenge and I am not getting any younger. Secondly, I wanted a test run on what a long armed quilt would be like. This is very simple patchwork pattern so I thought it was a good one to experiment with. I sent it out to The Modern Quilting Company in New York State. Just picked them out of the blue (plus they had sent me an email). It took two months and cost about $200 total, including the thread and batting. Pretty good deal and they did beautiful work. They do not bind however, so I got the experience of binding a quilt. I had never done this before in 47 years of quilting. It was not too onerous, I machine bound it, not by hand. You can see how well (for terrible) I did in the pictures.

4. The last thing I learned is that some quilts are worth waiting for. The third quilt is the only one that lives with me, the other two having been given away to fund raise and I am happy as a clam to have a least one of them. It was worth the two year wait.

I think I will sleep in the guest room tonight! Happy quilting! Ginnie