Last Saturday, Andy & I went to an estate sale. There was a LOT of STUFF...but my interest was in the fabric! Did I mention this was an estate of a QUILTER! The majority of the fabric was really nice quilt-store quality fabric...Moda, RJR, SSI, Thimbleberries, etc...and it was all pre-measured and being sold for $1.00/yard!!! I cleaned up big-time! Besides fabric, I got 3 quilt stencils and a quart-sized baggie of quality thread!
I ended up with about 250 yards of fabric!
I spent Saturday afternoon and most of Sunday folding it and incorporating it into my stash.
In this fabric was some Scrabble fabric and I knew immediately how I was going to use it!
My eldest sister LOVES Scrabble! When we lived in California she would come visit from New York and we'd play. She called it "East vs. West".
She is now battling cancer and has been through several different kinds of treatments, which have taken a toll on her and she's always cold now. On March 15, she will enter the hospital for a 2-week stay to be in a new study of an immunilogical drug therapy.
So Sunday after I finished putting away all the "new" fabric, I took the Scrabble fabric and cut a "panel" out of it, added some blue floral borders and beige cornerstones to make a throw-sized quilt. Since she's so cold all the time, I used a double layer of polyester/cashmere batting, and backed it with a thrifted vintage sheet.
I quilted it on my Tin Lizzie18 sit-down long-arm on Monday and Tuesday evening after work, and sewed the binding on by hand Wednesday evening after work. I washed and dried it today, packed it up, and Andy took it to the post office this afternoon (Thursday)! (WHEW!! That's the fastest I've ever finished a quilt but I wanted to get it to her before she went into the hospital next Thursday!!!)
I didn't have time to embroider a label, so I used a hand-written one instead and attached it using a method I read about from Bonnie Hunter here.
Just last week, I saw a post about how to fold a quilt so it stays neat, so I used that method to fold it down to the size of a flat-rate Priority Mail shipping box, and I slipped a note into the folded edge. I really liked this technique and will definitely be using it in the future! It really does keep the quilt in a nice, tidy bundle that won't fall open and doesn't have any floppy sides!
Loretta
