Grandma Would Be Happy

And if not I sure am. I finally completed the top to my friend's extra long quilt that her grandma made. Apparently Grandpa was 6' 6" and she need a custom sized bed covering. Because it was tied there was damage to over 2/3 of the large plain squares. And many of the smaller patches had just fallen apart.  The ties were too far apart for all the use the quilt saw, and the length of the actual tie was long, rather than the points of entry being close together.

She used sheets for most of the larger blocks and that made a challenge to rip seams as the thread count is so much higher than the surrounding clothing scraps.

After I had the piece removed I would use it to cut a new piece and sew it back in.  Originally I ripped two seams the width of the quilt to get it into manageable pieces.  The challenge with the original blocks is that they were not always square, but the template idea worked well.

I laid it out on the family room floor so I could take a picture from the top of the stairs, it is 8' 6" - yikes!  I  am taking to church next week and we are going to spread out the backing - which grandma used a old pink blanket and surrounded it with a sheet that comes up from the back to wrap the front as binding.  I will let you know how the tying goes - I could definately use an old fashioned quilt group for this one.