An Almost Finished Quilt With My Great Grandmother

The only thing missing from this quilt is the binding and a label. Right now, there are four generations involved in its creation. By the time it is completed, I am hoping it will be five. Here's the cast of characters...

Eunice Fincher - my great grandmother - hand stitched three sets of blocks so that each of her three grandaughters would have something made by her.
Ruby Morgan - my grandmother - lovingly stored these blocks to pass on to her daughters. We are not sure if she helped make them or not.
Linda Morgan - my mother - recipient of blocks. She used my grandmothers treadle sewing machine to stitch them together into a quilt top.
Debora Exum - that's me! - put the layers together and did the machine quilting.
Erica Exum - my daughter, who doesn't know she is being recruited yet! I'm hoping to talk her into designing a label for the back of this beauty. She is good at that sort of thing. I've got my mom on the hunt for a picture of my great grandmother. I want to make sure this quilt gets a proper label.

I was really nervous about using any sort of chemicals with these old fabrics so I pin basted the layers together. This may be the first quilt I have ever pin basted and it is also the biggest quilt I have every quilted at 72" x 90". It's a good thing the quilting was kept simple.

I stitched in the ditch around each block and the four squares within the block. Stitching near the ditch would be more like it, and there is diagonal stitching through each petal.

The stitching shows up a tad better from the back, which is a wide backing fabric by Darlene Zimmerman in white and aqua.

This quilt is full of interesting fabric and I am sure it all covers a long time period. This pot bellied stove fabric was one of my favorites.

Then there are these cool black and white circles.

What about this 1930s looking baby fabric? So cute!

See how the red poodle fabric is stitched together from smaller pieces to make one piece big enough to be used in the block. Anywhere scraps are sewn together like this, they are machine stitched, while the blocks themselves are hand stitched.

And one more to make sure we have met our quota of cuteness for today... these sweet bows.

The only reason the binding is not on yet is because my mom wanted to choose the binding fabric. I took the quilt to her house today along with all sorts of binding options. She decided that it needed something dark to frame it so I will bind it with either a dark brown or a black solid.

Once this quilt is finished, it will hang on the wall at my mom's house. This has been a great project for me and my mom to work on together. I'm so glad the blocks did not get stored away in the back of a closet. They will be enjoyed for generations to come.

Other posts about this project:

Quilt Progress on the Treadle Machine

Quilt Blocks from my Great Grandmother

Linking up with Monday Making at Love Laugh Quilt and Design Wall Monday at Patchwork Times.