Flora's quilt lives on!

Remember this photo from Monday? This is how Flora bound this quilt. It's kind of weird but I am so grateful! This is what made it possible for me to fix this quilt on the longarm.

I had just enough fabric in that binding to pin to the zippers. As I rolled the quilt I would unfold the edge, pin to a strip of fabric and then I could use my clamps. It was perfect.

This utility quilt got utility stitching. I nailed down the edges of every block with straight stitching and then did a stipple in each block. I found that it was helpful to use my ruler table on the longarm because I had to hand manipulate the edges a bit and the flat surface really helped. It only took a couple of hours to do all of the stitching/quilting. I used an off-white in the needle and a tan in the bobbin. The tan virtually disappeared into the back.

This is a thick quilt so a 1/4" binding wasn't going to work. It would feel like cording. Flora used wide binding so I would too.

Scrappy binding in feedsack fabrics, of course. I machine stitched the binding because a utility quilt can get a utility binding. 

Done!
I am beyond thrilled with this quilt. It looks like something Flora might have made with anything and everything thrown in to make it work. I'm so glad I covered every inch of the original quilt. It really works with the chunks of other vintage fabrics.  I took this photo before I washed the quilt (first time 40 years) because I was afraid it would fall apart. But it came out of the was in great shape.

Here are some close ups of each section of the quilt. Flora loved that Dutchman's Breeches block. I had 2 of those and neither was square.

You can see how my thread color completely blended into the back of the quilt. You can still see Flora's Baptist Fan quilting and my stipple doesn't looks as awkward as I thought it would. 

I'm calling this project a huge success.