Ocean Wave Quilt

When a long term project is finally completed

there's a mixture of emotions.

Of course, there's excitement that it's done,

there's even a bit of sadness

and a then a wonderful sense of accomplishment.

In May, 2009, I went to a local quilt guild meeting, and

purchased a ratty "old" quilt top as part of a 

silent auction.

It had wonderful old fabrics that were

in remarkably great shape, despite the fact that

someone had thought it would be a good idea to wash it.

The hand pieced seams were very frayed and coming apart.

The top was living up to it pattern name, Ocean Waves,
and was very wavy.
This is a difficult pattern to stitch and  lay flat for anyone.

It was at this point I began the start of a long term project to take it apart

block by block

and

 carefully stitching it back together with 

exact seams.

Here are all the sections redone.

The sections were sewn together and the points
were pretty sharp and accurate.

As I continued to put the quilt back together,
I hoped that there would be enough usable light shirting fabric to

be able to use to set the blocks together.
 

Here is the top all back together. 
It is slightly smaller than the original, but that's fine.

Hand quilting was the only option.

I kept the pattern simple, with outlining the light triangles
and doing a grid in the open centers.

The binding was done with a piece of antique cadet blue
that I must have been saving just for this.

I had only enough to make a single straight of  grain binding.
It worked perfectly and I did sew it totally on by hand.

 Narrow binding

 

The completed Ocean Wave.

There are several pieces in this quilt that are typical of
the period of 1860's -1880's.
I used Eileen Jahnke Trestain's book,
Dating Fabrics a Color Guide 1800-1960.

I am not a fabric historian, but

it is fun to look and investigate.

Dark blue with a chrome overlay

Chrome Yellow print

A double pink with fine lines in the background

Gerabaldi red prints

The rest of the quilt is wonderful shirtings, mourning prints,

cadet blues, claret reds that are probably more

in the turn of the century time period.

That's still pretty old!

Or at least older than me.

It's a great quilt and

I'm glad I got to be part of it's history.

Until Next Time-