My Second Quilt

Now here is the second quilt I ever made. The construction of this quilt is pretty much exactly the same as the first one, so I won't bore you with repetition. The overall size of this quilt is bigger than the first one, although the squares are all the same size.

The biggest difference between this and the first would be the addition of a real border. It's puny by my standards now, but at least I started thinking about borders at this point.
I still didn't have a clue about value, contrast, and design, but at least I did try to balance out the visually "heavy" fabrics (ie the dark, solid fabrics).

I used lots of different fabrics in this quilt. Some from my aforementioned stash and others that I purchased. Some of the fabrics are even my old clothes that I cut up into squares! I guess, at this point, I was still trying to achieve the idea of the quilt in that storybook that I had read.

Unfortunately, in the real world of quilting, using so many different TYPES of fabrics is not a good idea. 100% cotton is usually the way to go. So, my old stonewashed denim jeans, my old pink sweatshirt, and an old flannel nightgown would not really qualify as quilting material. For one, the fabrics are all very different thicknesses. For two, well, you'll see why soon enough.....

Okay, so here is one mistake of half a dozen or more that I made with this quilt. Do not, I repeat, do not use an old, worn flannel nightgown in your quilt or this is what will happen after a few years of using and washing the quilt. Yup, and I used A LOT of that flannel. So, a few years ago, I had to figure out a way to repair all these squares that were ripping to shreds.

And here was my solution.... I dug and dug through my fabric stash and found some pieces of those original fabrics that I used when I made this quilt. Believe it or not, more than 10 years later, I still had some of that laying around (still do, actually).


I cut squares about an inch bigger than the squares on the quilt, folded and pressed a seam allowance all the way around, and just stitched it on by machine to cover the unsightly rips and shreds! So far, it has worked pretty good! This floral fabric square is an example of where I patched over a flannel square.

There's another patch in the upper right. Notice the stonewashed denim square to the left of it! Yes, that was a pair of my jeans in high school! There was also a tear in the border (look to the upper left in the border here. So, I used my machine to zig-zag stitch it closed.

So, here in the bottom right corner, I have signed my work again. I finished this in 1994, but I really don't know when I actually started it. I know that I started it before I had my live-in nanny job, which was in February '93. So, my best guess is that I started it sometime in 1992.

Notice in this photo you can see my quilting stitches. Look to the left side of this square where it meets up with the burgandy. There are two rows of stitching visible. The row closest to the burgandy is my hand quilting (using that punch-and-stab method again). The row to the right of it is where I machine stitched around this square when I was doing repair work to it a few years ago. And notice, too, that I am no longer using that thick crochet thread! I used real thread this time, which still isn't the right kind, but at least better than that crochet stuff!

I had to put this in... see the pink sweatshirt material in the upper left with the letters "CA" on it? Then on the bottom right you see "hills"? This was a sweatshirt I used to wear in high school that said "Camp Beverly Hills" on it! *Sigh* I loved that stupid, fashionless sweatshirt! And there is a piece of those denim jeans again! Let's just move on....

My attempt at using fabric pieces that weren't large enough for my square template? Just cut triangles and sew 'em together! There's another repair patch in the bottom left corner!

Some of the much older fabrics that I used have faded tremendously. This purple-looking square was actually a dark blue when I first made the quilt.  This would be a disadvantage to using "vintage" fabric in a new quilt.

The back of this quilt is just absolutely hideous! It's an embarrassment to the 10th degree! What a mess!