Several years ago on a visit to see her she gave me the quilt and requested that I finish it for her. It has been in my "to do" pile since then. With my schedule I have not had time to put this back into a frame for hand quilting, nor do I have the time to hand quilt anymore. Now to my dilema......Several times in the past six months she has stated that she would love to see the quilt finished before she passes away. Now with the events of the last year and half with losing five family members, including my dad, I feel sure that I need to complete this quilt as soon as possible.
So I need your opinions. Below are pictures of the quilt. Beautiful but only 7 blocks have been quilted which is only a 10th of the quilt completed. So what do I do?
- Rip out the hand quilting and put into longarm and get it quilted as soon as possible.
- Put into my frame and quilt on it when I have time and hand quilt it. (hoping that she will live until 90+ years as it will take me at least that long with my schedule)
- Pay a hand quilter to finish the quilt
This is the first and only quilt Alberta ever made. Thanks for helping me decide what to do with this project.
Happy quilting,
Shelia
9 comments:
This is a tough one. I see it as either pay someone to finish it for you by hand or machine quilt it to finish. I would tend to say leave in her hand stitches and finish it up on the machine...not longarm. You may not want to tackle that but that is what I would probably do with it. So I leave you with more questions than answers.....follow your instinct on this one.
I agree with Debbie's comment. Leave the stitches in.
Find a way to machine quilt it. Don't wait, you never know what the future holds.
Do you know any other quilters in your area? You could put it back on the frame and have a quilting bee. With many hands working on it the job will be done quickly. If you are the only quilter, I think you should just make it your #1 priority and hand quilt it. Good luck.
The blocks are beautiful.
My first thought was the same as Debbie's. To leave the stitches and have someone else finish it on a machine. I think the combination of her stitches and the new stitches would make it very unique.
Karen also has a great idea.
I know you will never regret finding a way to finish it for her. It will be a treasure for someone in the future.
I think you should pay someone to finish the hand quilting. A lot of churches have women that will hand quilt. You just have to find them and stress to them that this is a rush thing, considering her health. You could also send it to an Amish community to finish, also stressing the health issues. I don't think that machine quilting would enhance the quilt and all the time you and your mother in law spent would be wasted as would the bonding time.
I would leave her hand stitching and finish the remainder with either your machine or a longarm - the combination of the two will make for a generational quilt. AND it will be finished.
U could always have her be a part of the decision by telling her that you cannot do it by hand, times have changed and you are going to finish it by machine and would that be ok...We have a member of our bee who is 95. her answer to all this is "Get it Done"! Leave her stitches in and machine quilt it...IMHO
Unless it is financially out of the question, I suggest paying someone to finish the hand quilting.
My first thought was that you should finish it up on the machine and leave her stitching in. But if you don't want the two different types of stitching on it then I would try to find a hand quilter that could finish it.
Post a Comment