Martha’s Flower Garden
Posted on May 24, 2023 by prairiemoonquilts in QuiltsToday, I wanna show you a recent vintage finish that’s been a long time in the works.
A few years ago, a childhood friend, Marsha, contacted me to ask if I would quilt a quilt for her. She was in possession of a quilt top that had been pieced by her grandmother, Martha. Martha had lots of grandchildren, so Marsha is very fortunate to be the recipient of this quilt!
Of course, I said yes, because I love working with the vintage quilts and tops. Upon receiving it, I didn’t have time to work on it for awhile, and when I finally pulled it out, I realized it needed quite a few repairs before it could be quilted, so that was my first order of business.
Then I had to choose a backing. I knew I didn’t want plain white, so I ended up choosing this lovely lavender solid. Marsha approved.
Then it languished for quite a while longer simply because I didn’t have time in my longarm schedule for it!
But I finally got it quilted last December.
I didn’t want to ditch quilt any of the flowers because I didn’t want to compromise the fragile seams any further.
So I quilted a flower in the middle of each one, and my go-to swirls in the outer round.
Then I outlined each flower 1/4″ outside the edge. The only part I ditched was a line running between each row of flowers, just to secure the background. Other than that, I didn’t want to fill in any of the background.
For the binding, I chose to do a knife-edge binding because I didn’t want to trim any of the edges straight, or lose any parts of any flowers. That binding took me months to do, partly because it was so tedious, I couldn’t make myself sit down and do it for very long at a time. Uff!
After I hand stitched the edges together, I machine stitched around the edge to help keep it even more secure.
I finally got to deliver it back to Marsha last weekend! Whew! That was a long time coming!
She said she had been planning to gift it to one of her kids, but upon seeing it finished, I think she’s decided to keep it for herself — haha!
It looks like Martha started out with some sort of plan right in the very center with all the red flowers, but then threw caution to the wind and put everything else in randomly! I love it. Marsha said Martha loved red, so the center portion was no surprise.
I know Martha would be happy that Marsha has the quilt finished now, and can use it. I think it turned out fabulous!
Here are the details:
Grandmother’s Flower Garden, a vintage top originally pieced by Martha Coffman.
Finished size: 75″ x 90″
Backing: Lavender solid, Moda Bella
Batting: Quilter’s Dream Cotton Select Natural
Quilting: custom, non-computerized, by me
Binding: knife-edge, hand-turned and hand-stitched, then stabilized by machine
So beautiful!
Wonderful preservation of a family treasure!
Wow, Wow, Wow. Beautiful and only a quilter would realize how much work went into this. Beautiful.
This is beautiful and the way you have quilted it really does the maker justice. I’m sure Marsha wouldn’t have minded the waited at all!
What customer service you do. It is beautiful and so appreciated by her granddaughter. Yes, it needs to wait to be gifted to her great granddaughter.
Well done!!! The edge is so impressive!!!!
It’s beautiful Shelly I love the one that you did for me. Hope you’re doing OK.
What a wonderful finish to a very old quilt. That lady’s grandmother would be very pleased. Great job.
The quilt is beautiful, smoothed out everything and strengthened the seams to last lots of years. You are very meticulous to get it right. BEAUTIFUL!!!
You are amazing, Shelly.
Lovely! I feel it would be soft and used!
What a wonderful tribute you have made to this quilter! I love your work and really appreciated hearing about the reasons why you chose to do what you did. Maybe sometime you could talk more about what a “knife edge” binding is.
What gorgeous work! I love the way you quilted it. To do knife edge binding on that quilt must have taken forever, but that is the type binding a quilt like that needed. I’ll bet Martha would have done knife edge binding had she finished the quilt. Thank you for preserving a treasure.
A beautiful finish!! Thank you for the step by step and the reasons why.
Beautiful!
That is lovely. What a work of art.