Ohio Memories Finished and Gifted

I am positively amazed at how much time there is between posts these days. Wowsers, is there anyone out there who even cares anymore? lol  So this is 'Ohio Memories', the quilt I finished up for my parents 50th anniversary. Looking back through the blog, there are very few posts about it. My insecurities about the journey to making it 102" by 102" made me reluctant to post about it during those years. Now I spread the good, bad and ugly with indiscriminate joy! 

A finished Ohio Memories quilt!

I started out with a pattern from the 2002 Quilt Sampler magazine called 'Ohio Memories'. It's one I literally drooled over and then refused to start because I was sure the applique was waay beyond my skill level. Then, sometime in 2010, I decided to quit being a scaredy cat and just made myself start the quilt. Well, the applique was much easier than I ever dreamed--lots of simple, largish pieces with nothing intricate at all. Placement was the very worst part and since I'm not a perfectionist, I only allowed myself to dither for so long and then would start stitching regardless of imagined flaws.

The quilt of many borders! Too big to lay out on the floor properly....

In the original pattern, immediately after the large applique centerpiece was a thin border and then next up was a larger plain border with an embroidered saying all done in redwork. Well, that just drove me crazy, the idea of embroidering so many words. Eventually I decided the quilt needed pieced borders instead, and set about trying to make that happen. Making the decision to mimic the subtle Ohio Stars blocks inside the center was easy. Measuring to make that happen however, was a bit challenging. But the border did finally do what it was supposed to do and only requiring a slight trim of the inside border fabric to all fit and play nicely together.

Looking at the quilting

Then I came up with the bright idea of turning the entire quilt 'on point'. Oh yes! So interesting and I had all the fabric in my stash. ha ha  The best laid plans of mice and men! I threw on a narrow green coping border and then somehow determined the corner setting triangles were going to be the simple square blocks filling in the corners of the quilt. Easy peasy.

Yeah. It should have been. It was at this point, I quickly realized my quilt had lost something important in translation. It seemed to be drowning in pink. Wanting to brighten it up and lose the sickly sweet look, I came up with the idea of adding on the cream triangle overlay border. I had to un-stitch those sewn-on corner blocks, sew the long cream borders onto the inside seam and then carefully draw and cut my cream triangles so I could applique them into place. {You can see the details of that in the previous picture if you are a quilter. And except for the fact that the triangles are raised, most people would never realize.} Nevertheless, it was a choice that pretty much haunted me. Made me wonder at times if in fact, the whole quilt was a total failure. I love the way the cream ties back into the center part of the quilt so well, but have a love/hate relationship with how it also fades into the lighter squares on the corners.

Trying to get a better picture before it started raining again!

We always question our quilting decisions don't we? Before, during and even long after. Thankfully, the machine quilting helped me like those cream triangles a little more. Like I said in a previous post. My friend did an amazing job with what I wanted to have happen with the quilting.

The last two border however, were not stressful in the slightest. The prior mess and resulting 'fix' maxed me out on the stress part of it I guess! Just a small little pop of color in the thin pink sashing border and then the mixed brown fabric borders all to frame everything in a satisfactory way. Wallah! A finish! I did agonize for months though about the very point of where the green coping strips met up with both the cream triangles and the thin bright pink sashing border. It took pretty much forever to settle on the simple flower applique, but once that was stitched on, I just breathed a big sigh of relief and said 'no more second guessing allowed!'

My awesome helper bee....

The entire quilt top took about two years from start to finish, but then it's been sitting in the drawers for years waiting on this anniversary {and motivation to do the sandwiching and quilting}. I didn't start this quilt with my parents 50th anniversary in mind, but as it grew, I always sort of knew they would be the very best recipients. Of course, things don't work out as planned and even though this quilt has been at my friends for the long-arming since June or July? I only got it back from her about two and a half weeks ago. Luckily I found the binding fabric at the first store I looked in and was able to get the binding completed last Tuesday, then the label attached on Wednesday morning. Whew!

Big congrats for an amazing 50 yrs together!

The anniversary party went together extremely well and it helps that my oldest brother was a florist once upon a time and two of my sister-in-laws do wedding cakes! We were run off our legs putting it together of course--serving a meal for between 150 and 175 people!-- but I think my parents greatly appreciated it. 

There's been the tough years, more sorrows than most deal with, and many, many changes along the way, including the burning down of their home of 40 yrs and now a beautiful new house. They've also had a very bountiful life and so very, many blessings they are not shy to speak of. The big picture boards placed around the reception were wonderful. Such a reflection of their lives and dare I say,  'legacy'?

It was an incredibly emotional week for all of us {I couldn't believe how much it affected me!}, but so sweet to see them enjoy a Thanksgiving with all of their children/grandchildren in town followed by the celebratory anniversary party. So much fun to see them serve cake to each other and smile in a way that shows their continuing love and care for each other. They much deserved having this party and I was very happy to be a part of making it happen--even though my feet hurt like the dickens by the end of Saturday night and I just wanted to crawl into bed for a week!