Makeover madness

Rescued quilt top #9 drove me a little crazy. It wasn’t the quilt’s fault, it was mine. Now that it’s finished, it’s really satisfying to have met that challenge.

Here’s the before photo. It’s not unattractive, but at 49″x 50″, it may have been difficult to find the right recipient. The aim is to give it a second chance to provide comfort, not to remain in a closet.

Pictured below is the finished quilt which now measures 50 1/2″ x 70 1/2″.

The backing fabric was a red stripe. I took the opportunity to be more creative to increase the width. I want to explore more pieced back ideas in the future.

Vivian, the guild outreach chairwoman, found some extra floral strips in cream that were used on the top that I was able to incorporate into the back. I tried to use a design I hoped would complement the Trip Around the World pattern on the front.

I quickly decided what to do with the first few tops in this group of ten. This one was more challenging, and I changed my mind several times while planning. I’ll just say there was a lot of mumbling going on and leave it at that. 😉

The original pieces were cut to 3″ x 10″. I didn’t want to reduce them to 2 1/2″ and waste fabric, but they also wouldn’t fit in a quilt block that required a 3 1/2″ piece.

After disassembling the top, I counted the pieces by color and determined how many 3″ squares I could cut.

I took out my graph paper, set up a quadrant, and decided to add two fabrics for the squares and a border. I added a red fabric and a neutral (with a small black and red design) to the pieces I had to come up with the finished size I wanted.

This small pile of leftover squares is all that remains of the original fabric in the top and that makes me pretty happy.

There’s only one top left! It’s small and just needs a different border, so I’m already planning my next quilt.