Thursday, November 7, 2019

My Last Quilty TBT

Here we are at what I'm pretty sure is my last Throwback Thursday quilt post. So let's get right to it. I made this one for my daughter and son-in-law in, I think, 2006, about a year after they got married--sort of a first anniversary gift, I guess. For some reason I had no photos of it and didn't think of it until just recently when I was searching for photos for my previous TBT post. So I asked my daughter to take some current photos, and while she was doing that, she came across an old one she had taken. Here is the quilt on their bed in 2009. I think my daughter might have been sentimentally taking photos as they were getting ready to become homeowners.
The quilt is based on colors that were popular at the time in an upscale home decor store, so I've always thought of it as the PB quilt (initials of the store). Although I have no photos of my own, I did find some documents on my computer of some of my plans for the design and color arrangement. It seems that I downloaded some graph paper and painstakingly colored in the squares using my paint program on my computer. Yipes! I'm not even sure how I did that. Here are some of my ideas:


I'm pretty sure the one on the left in that last picture is the final design. 

Here are some photos of the quilt in their current bedroom:
She had to dig it out of storage, so it's a bit scrunched up. It now only lives on the bed under their current quilts in the winter when it gets really cold. 
Here's a close up so you can see some of those tone-on-tone fabrics better. And you can also see that I tied it with pearl cotton. I was not yet retired back then and had no time to quilt it. I was only doing hand quilting at the time. They would probably still be waiting for it today if I had quilted it. I don't know the exact size, but it fits a queen sized bed, and the last time I hand quilted a quilt that size, I think it took 17 years. (There's a TBT post about that other quilt somewhere on this blog.) The back of this quilt is off-white--probably a good quality muslin. I'm certain that the batting is polyester given the distance between those ties.

This is, as far as I can tell, my 52nd quilty Throwback Thursday, a series of posts I have devoted to the quilts I made--or quilted--before I started blogging sometime in 2014. During that time I have documented at least 174 quilts--all the ones I could find photos for. There were a few more quilts along the way, but those were either exact duplicates or ones that slipped away from me without any documentation. I started this series in October 2014 when I found a blogger who was featuring TBT posts. Alas, the following week, she disappeared from blogland. For a few months I linked up almost weekly with another blog (Kelly at My Quilt Infatuation, which is still going strong), but that didn't feel quite right because the quilts featured on that blog were new ones. In the fall of 2015, I found Jenn at A Quarter Inch from the Edge, and I linked up with her monthly TBT linky party until life caught up with her in the fall of 2016, and she discontinued the party. I took a TBT break until January 2018, when Sandra at mmm! quilts revived TBT the first Thursday of the month. She now shares the hosting of the party with  AndrĂ©e at Quilting and Learning. So a big thank you to all of these women, and especially Sandra for reviving TBT. 

I have a real sense of accomplishment completing this documentation of old quilts. Looking back, I see that I used to write often about one quilt at a time. As my blogging rate tapered off, I started grouping quilts.There were some posts that wrote themselves--the ones where there was a poignant, or at least interesting, back story. Others relied on details and statistics because that was really all I had. Anyway, if you are new or newish to my blog and are interested in my old work and previous TBTs, just click on the "throwback thursday" label on the right side bar or at the bottom of this post. I think that will take you to most, if not all, of them. 

Again, thanks to the wonderful bloggers who have made these TBT parties possible. I'm linking up today with Sandra at mmm! quilts, where you will find her ALWAYS fascinating TBT blog post (really, she has total recall of the quilts she made before blogging and great photos) and the link party for you to share your own pre-blog quilts if you can. Even if you don't have any to share, be sure to read about the others at the party. 

I'll be back soon with more on my current projects. Until then, keep quilting!





9 comments:

Love Of Quilts said...

Very pretty quilt. I have a quilt I need to tie. Maybe I'll do it after seeing your.

KaHolly said...

Very nice! You’ve done well to document them all. I’d be pretty hard pressed to come up with pictures of long ago quilts, but your posts make me think of them all, and they are sweet thoughts. I got a chuckle from your statement about it taking 17 years to hand quilt one....I finally finished one last fall that took as long, and it was only half the size!

Lin said...

Lovely to see the quilt looking fresh even if a bit scrumpled. Its been a great way to document your quilts. xx

Louise said...

I remember those colors being popular! They still look great together. Thanks for sharing your prodigious quilting output from lo, these many years ago. I've enjoyed coming along for the ride :)

MissPat said...

Congratulations on reaching a milestone of sorts, all your quilts now documented online. I don't blog and I didn't always get pictures of the quilts (mostly baby/kid quilts) that I've made and gifted over the years. I have pictures of some locked away on old 3.5" computer disks and some printed pics that recipients have sent me. I wish I had kept better track and had the tech skills to save a record of them.
Pat

Sandra Walker said...

52 posts!!!! Wow.... that is staggering and quite an accomplishment for sure! It’s amazing to think of you painstakingly colouring in those squares on the computer! And then making a queen size quilt with all of them, wow! It is beautiful; the fabrics look like they have held up well. Thank you so much for linking up with my link up parties. I still have quite a few quilts to document so I will probably keep it going As I think it is so important to record their history and stories.

Mari said...

174 quilts! I knew you were awesome, but that's super-awesome. Congratulations on getting them all posted. This last one still looks great, nice and bright. The computer graph paper is just wild, too. I still use paper graph paper and pencils to color things, but I never thought about computerized graph paper. I've enjoyed seeing your older quilts, and I certainly look forward to some new ones, too!

PatriciaLud said...

I have really enjoyed seeing all of your quilts, and reading the stories that went with them. I try to take a photo of every quilt I've made but I know I've missed some, and I can't always remember who they were for! Time for me to write things down. Thank you for all the effort that went into finding and posting your quilts.

Linda said...

Gosh what pretty colors! I love the design also.
I'm kind of blown away by the sheer number of quilts you've made. Of course I'm hoping you'll find just a few more quilts to document, because I love these posts. :)
If I ever get to "Replay" (the name of one of my favorite books) my life over again, I'll document every single thing I make. It is fascinating to look back on the creative process in our lives.