at last, a long labor of love for Mother's day

About two years ago my mother dragged me downstairs to her craft room to show me this quilt top.  She had thrifted it for a total of five dollars.  At the time, I told her that I thought it was pretty and then went back upstairs.  Last year, during my "teach myself how to quilt phase", she brought it out again.  This time I held it in my hands and examined it.  I was in awe.  Hexagons are a rather difficult/time consuming quilt pattern, one that I haven't had the courage or patience to conquer.  The fabric appeared to have been collected over several years (I am basing that on some fabric history research I did) and each piece was hand stitched.  HAND STITCHED.  Which is phenomenal, so phenomenal.  In my mind I was watching a sweet dedicated woman lovingly piece this quilt top together, never finishing, always working on it.  

My mother had decided that she wanted to finish this quilt and put it on her guest bed.  Her words were, "I'm just going to find a cheap sheet and then use yarn to tie it."  Whhhhaaaaaa... over my dead body are your going to do that.  For some reason I feel like hand stitched quilt tops need to be honored.  Maybe because I know how much time and dedication a woman (or man, equal opportunity here) would have needed to give to a quilt like this that makes me want to end it's story well.  Even though I might have made up a story for how this quilt was made, I can certainly provide a good life here on out.  

The quilt top came home with me.  That was last April.  My mother purchased eight yards of Kona cotton for the back, which I measured and cut to fit.  She then called and wanted me to add some large sashing so that the quilt would drape better.  I ripped the back apart and added the sashing.  Which took me three months to do and then finish.

She wanted the quilt to be very light weight, but still add warmth.  She had a boat load of peach colored flannel (also thrifted) and I used that as batting instead.  After receiving the flannel, the quilt just sat for along time, hanging out on my clothes line.  I felt guilty every time I looked at it.  I knew that I needed to just finish it, but making Lou something seemed like a better idea, starting a new quilt was more exciting or making a new baby gift more urgent.  Christmas (my original due date) came and went.  I needed to get this quilt finished. 

I finally made the quilt sandwich late one night while catching up on my PBS classics.  It took all of my straight pins to do this, which was my final motivator.  I couldn't sew anything else without those pins. 

I quilted around the hexagons, haphazardly and at random.  Since I wasn't using batting, I only needed to make sure that the quilt would stay together.  Which means that I didn't need to quilt as much.  After I was finished, my arms looked terrible from all the pins catching on my tender skin, but the darn thing was done. 

I was going to bind the quilt with the left over Kona cotton, but I didn't think it would look great, so I used some of my own vintage stash.  I sewed the binding on over the course of several nights.  Dustin and I watched the new Jane Eyre, Becoming Jane and Dirty Jobs, season five.  Date night and quilting. Pretty good.  I am really proud at the binding on this quilt.  All of my mitered corners came out beautifully.  Sigh and a smile.

Overall, it turned out well.  Just in time for Mother's day.

Mom, I hope your guest bed appreciates this quilt, and when you die, can I have it?