Grandmother's Flower Garden...Also in Bloom

Here is a project I found when I was cleaning up my bedroom. There are UFOs all over our house. I find convenient places to stash them, and they are forgotten for years. This particular UFO is so old that I don't remember where I got the Grandmother's Flower Garden blocks. I really like the old-fashioned classic patterns. You know what I mean--the quilt patterns that everyone knows, whether they quilt or not.

I only had five blocks, and they are stained. In my limited experience, I have seen nearly all the stains on these era blocks come out perfectly. I got the idea of connecting them with a fabric that would match all of them. Hahahaha...more difficult than I would have thought. I ended up with the feedsack-type sewing print you see with the blue background. I added the hexagon-shaped blocks BY HAND all around then joined them together. That's the point at which it went into hiding again.

The irregular-shaped edge was one aspect I did not want to deal with. Binding that would be torture. So last week I hand-appliqued it to the vintage-looking cream in the pictures above. I basted about half of it and started hand-quilting it. Today I finished the basting (yellow thread) and have done more of the quilting.

It's ugly as sin. I particularly dislike the purple stripes in the ugliest block (the blue and black one--see the close-up picture if you can stomach it). I realize in retrospect that I should have put the ugliest block in the middle (where it would be hidden by our napkin basket on the table, LOL), but it's too late now.

I am using thread that matches the backgrounds of the fabric so that the stitches don't shout (since the whole runner does anyway!!). I love old (antique, vintage) blocks, and some of my favorite quilts are ones I made using someone else's beginnings and brought them to an end.

Stay tuned. I'm sure I'll be posting a finished picture in this decade.

~Joan