I wiped away the weeds & foam. / I fetched my sea-born treasures home... Ralph Waldo Emerson







Monday, April 8, 2013

Yay! The Porch is Finished



Hi guys! No not an outside porch, The Porch quilt top is finally done.



See! All fifty or seventy or more leaves, finally are on...




I love the birds on the borders...




Probably, lol, you're tired of seeing this project! But I am actually pretty proud that I completed it. It is by far the largest applique quilt I have made.

It was supposed to be done, I think, January 1st? And was a Block of the Month quiltalong with Lori of Humble Quilts http://humblequilts.blogspot.com. Her entire quilt is done: quilted, bound and sent abroad. Amazing.
I will add some button eyes for the kitties and birds and stuffed work ladybugs and bumble bees after it is quiilted. But done, for now.

I am waiting for the backing....

 
I love this purple calico, but who knows when it will arrive. I've had Hancock's back orders appear as much as an entire year later!
 

 
 
I also have enough of this wonderful mud-colored text print. It goes with the border toile and it is pages from an antique natural history field guide. So I don't know yet....

 

I made this decorative panel for the back.



Making this ''freehand'' with just some online inspirations, gives me, now more than ever, great admiration for a designer like Lynda Hall who designed the Porch quilt.
My own panel is a little odd. 
The fabrics were bought during our enforced stay in NYC, a whirlwind run through City Quilter.


The colors are a bit off...but they represent memories of the kind friends who gave me well meant, and correct, but hard to follow advice; "You're stuck there in NYC, you should enjoy it! Mini-vacation." In my shock and disbelief following the evacuation, and the helplessness of not knowing when or if I'd ever return home....well, that was hard to do at first. But, you know...quilters love a quilt shop and it was a wonderful day!



Blue birds for serenity, a yellow bird for happiness...

Below is a hospitality pineapple [remembering the kindness when we were given shelter during H Sandy]. Not perfect. But it was fun to make.



This is the inspiration one from Pinterest, an antique fragment? My triangles are wrong, see? I plan to make it again someday. And get it right.




The pink coneflowersflowers were blooming on the roof garden where we stayed in
lower Manhattan:




Also got this crock that day, remember?





And picked up the autumn leaves on my daily walk along NYC's Battery Promenade.



Yes, in hindsight, good times.

There will be a further panel saying:

The Porch Quilt
sewn on the beach
during the summer before
Hurricane Sandy 2012
and in NYC &-------NY
in the winter that followed.
by lizzy dillingham
''Remember the Good Times''
                                                                                 design by Lynda Hall

[printer issues, sigh.]



I also finished piecing the doll quilt from Lori's other quilt along. I fixed the border ripples after I saw these pix!





close-up, but pls remember you can click on any photo for a supersized view...


It gets its batting and then will be set aside for handquilting on the beach when summer comes.



Yes on the beach.
Still here, still beautiful...to me.



love

              lizzy

gone to the beach....

my feral kitties, my little survivors:
Kitty



and Stripey

 
 
and Gully