Remember the grunge phase that swept the nation in the early nineties? Smells like teen spirit? Long hair? Ripped jeans? That was the context (umm...sort of! not really!) for this quilt. As a junior high school student at the time I went through a few years where I wore flannel shirts and hiking boots almost exclusively. It was around that time that my mom got me going on this quilt, probably as a way to keep me entertained in the summer, probably when I was eleven or twelve. It helped that I was also a little horse crazy (this was not related to the grunge movement as far as I know). I did the buttonhole stitch applique and embellishment (ears, eyes, and tail) on all the blocks at that time and set them all together without the borders, but that's as far as I got. Then it got moved from box to box to closet for about fourteen years.
Years later when I began to get seriously interested in quilting I hunted around for this project intending to finish it. All it needed was the borders for the top to be completed, but somehow when you've been not working on a project for over ten years it is easy to continue to not work on it. However, I had it specifically in mind when I went through my beginning of the year assessment and goal setting this year, and I bought the border fabric the first week in January. Now at last the borders are on and I can put it in the queue to be quilted. I haven't decided if I want to do it by hand or machine.
It's a different look from most of what I'm doing these days, but I guess you can probably expect that from fourteen year old works in progress...
9 comments:
The tails on those horses are so adorable. I'm the most indecisive person so I'm no help on the quilting dilemma, but look forward to seeing it done!
I love it!
That is so cool that you have a quilt that you started when you were young. I love when quilts have a story behind them. Way to go on getting it finished!
What a great quilt! It definitely deserves to be quilted! What about a combination? Maybe do the sashing by machine and some handstitching in the horse blocks to complement the blanket stitch you did around the bodies.
great post! i had a dress in high school that was the same brown/white plaid as the horse in the first close-up pic, hahaha!
good luck deciding how to finish it.
Kurt Cobain was totally into horsies.
I think this has gone beyond a "work in progress" to more of a "collaboration with your childhood self." Quilty the Child and Quilty the Adult both contribute their vision and skills towards a jointly-realized final project. With horsies! Awesome.
This is a real treasure. I look forward to the finished piece. It's a beauty.
I really like this quilt. What a great story you'll have when it's completed. Very cool. I'd use the pattern and idea now. Very ahead of your time.
What a great quilt! Those horses have such personality. I really like it.
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