Throwback Thursday Quilt Edition--A Little Home Decor

Today's throwback quilt is one I made in 1996 to dress up our family room after we moved into a new house. 

It's a strippie quilt that seemed to have a mind of it's own when it came to shape. It looks like a simple design, but it was really complex to plan and I may have made a few errors in measuring and in seam allowance. In the end, the centers of each side pulled in way out of square. My solution was to put sleeves on every side of the back and to use a yard stick and two strips of screen molding to hold the quilt square. It worked, and the quilt has been hanging from a decorative oak shelf in our family room ever since. It used to be a focal point over the couch, but over the years we rearranged furniture and placed a TV cabinet under it. Our TVs have grown a bit over the years, so the quilt has become more of a backdrop than a focal point, but I still like it, and it fits the color scheme of the room perfectly. Sorry, no recent picture, but here are ones I took when I finished the quilt. (A bit blurry, but they're scans of pre-digital photos.) I suppose I could take another, but the lighting's not great right now.

The following measurements are approximate due to the wonkiness of the quilt and the effects of quilting on the top: The whole thing is about 36 1/2 inches square (ish). The flying geese are 3 1/2 inches by 1 3/4 inches, and I remember that it was difficult to plan the size of the square in square blocks to fit 9 of them in the same length as 12 flying geese--they needed to be 2 1/3 inches, which is an odd measurement. I think I had a ruler at the time that had 1/12 inch markings, but it because it would be difficult to cut fabric accurately with it, I drew strips out on graph paper and paper pieced parts of the quilt. I also had to plan the sashes so that I could fit 12 square in square blocks around the central portion. You can see that there was a LOT of room for error. But it all came out well in the end with the moldings to hold everything in place. 

The batting is a light polyester and the hand quilting is with cotton, 1/4 inch from seams in the blocks and in a little vine pattern in the sashes and outer border. I pieced the quilt on my Singer Featherweight. 

I really like strippie quilts and would consider making another sometime, but probably with a less complex design--probably more truly strippie with only vertical rows. And in consideration of the now common improvisational approach, I probably wouldn't worry about lining everything up. It would be liberating indeed!! 

So there you have it: a bit of my home decor. I'm linking up today with My Quilt Infatuation for Needle and Thread Thursday. 

Have a good weekend, everyone.