Vintage Spin Quilt

This is my Vintage Spin quilt, and it’s also a quilt that started a journey.  I made the quilt top years ago and like so many others, it sat, waiting for the perfect quilting.  My new approach to all those quilt tops is to just finish them.  Even average quilting (which is definitely what mine is on my little old longarm) makes a finished quilt.  I would also like to give more quilts away, another reason to get them quilted.  So with that mentality, I loaded Vintage Spin and did my best.

The pattern for this quilt is by Kathy Doughty in her book, Adding Layers .  I used mine to cut into all my Art Gallery fabrics and mixed them together.  It’s a fun quilt to make.  I love seeing all these fabrics together, and the pattern creates lots of movement for the eye to track.  But my favorite part of this quilt came later, over time.

The scraps.  Yes, the scraps.  You see, this pattern is made by trimming a round dresden block down to a square.  And because I loved those fabric so much, I couldn’t bear to discard the edges.  They sat for a while, and then got them out to play with.

First I made my Awake Quilt .  Awake might be my favorite of all my quilts.  (Don’t tell the others!)  Something about using those little arcs to create blocks with stars in circles thrilled me.  And then came Morn Shall Tearless Be .  A more predictable layout, but really meaningful for me.  I shared that one recently, and have leaned on it personally as I carry on with a challenge in my life that I’ve shouldered for many years.  Someday it will lift, someday there will be a morning without that weight.  So even if the layout was more predictable, my heart needed that quilt.

And I have more of them.  My Vintage Spin Quilt provided a generous contribution to future creativity, perhaps more than any other I’ve made.  There is a third spinoff in progress, and I’ve sketched a few other ideas too.  So the journey that followed the quilt top is my favorite part.

But back to the quilt.  I quilted it, intending to gift it for Christmas.  Unfortunately, while binding it I discovered an area on the back with tension issues, so it stays here.  I gave another quilt to my friends.  I’m not sad to keep Vintage Spin because it’s nice to have the quilt that started the journey.

I used a yellow Art Gallery print to bind it, and it’s actually a print I set aside back when I finished the quilt top, intended for binding.  Why make a decision twice?  While I prefer the look of hand binding, I’ve had challenges with elbow tendinitis lately, so I did it by machine.

Do you have a quilt that started a new creative journey for you?  If so, please share!  All this talk about the journey my Vintage Spin Quilt started makes me hungry to sew.  I think I’ll go do just that.  Have the best day!  Thanks for visiting!

-Jennifer