Do you ever have regrets after you buy fabric online and ask yourself, "what was I thinking?" That was me several months ago when I bought a half yard bundle of Denyse Schmidt's Ansonia line. Now don't get me wrong, I love Denyse's fabric, but this line just wasn't my cup of tea. It sat on a shelf waiting for me to get a destash post on Instagram together.
A few weeks ago I saw a quilt on Instagram that Nancy Purvis was working on and I immediately thought of my bundle of Ansonia. My fabric was nothing like the fabric Nancy was working with but I had an idea to use whites, bold solids and some low volume with the DS fabric and make a quilt for our favorite priest, who was being transferred to San Francisco at the end of June.
I have to admit I love the end result and I am so glad I did not get rid of the fabric.
Martha has decided she is my official helper and loves to be the center of attention when I am trying to photograph my projects.
Each block measures 8" x 16.5" unfinished. I sewed them in an 8x5 grid to make a decent sized lap quilt for a very tall man.
The colors of the quilt could go feminine or masculine but to make sure it looked manly enough, I wanted a nuetral colored backing. I backed it with Carolyn Friendlander's Extra-wide Crossweave in Charcoal. I didn't have enough fabric to cover the width of the quilt. No problem, I just used more of the DS fabrics to piece the back along one side.
I free-motion quilted the quilt using a light grey thread and a crazy eight pattern which gave the quilt great texture and wasn't too hard on my shoulders.
The Crossweave made a good binding, too, making it easy and stress free. No more decisions needed to be made.
The only thing left was to give the quilt to Father Henry. We did that after mass on Saturday. When he opened it he said, "You think I am going to be cold in San Francisco?" I answered "yes", and knew he was happy with his gift. He was really touched when I said I made the quilt and I could tell he was thrilled with the gift.
We will miss him. He has been at our parish for 17 years. Longer than we have been going there. He is from Poland and he always kept me aware of my Polish roots. He even helped us when we were planning our trip to Poland 4 years ago. We will surely be planning a trip to San Francisco to see him in the coming years as often as we can.
Our church is the Polish Catholic Center of Orange County, Californa. We will be getting a new Polish priest this weekend. I hope Father Henry finds a Polish community once he gets to San Francisco. He doesn't have any family in the states. He said his parish becomes his family. We wish him well in his new ssignment, but we will miss his smile, his humor, his wonderful sermons and his Polish influence in our lives.
Quilt Stats:
Pattern:Improv Stripes
Fabric: Ansonia by Denyse Schmidt, low volume and solids from stash
Thread: Pieced with Aurifil 50 wt.
Batting:Warm and White
Backing: Ansonia by Denyse Schmidt/Crossweave by Carolyn Friedlander in Charcoal
Quilting:Free Motion Crazy Eights by me on my Bernina 820 using Connecting Threads Essential 40wt. Thread in Light Grey
Finished Size: 55" x 75"