International Friendship Quilt

 

I finished hand stitching the binding on my latest quilt this morning.  I have been working on this quilt at our guilds UFO days and finished piecing it at our Retreat this past weekend.   Since I am well ahead on my clients quilts this month I put it on my longarm Sunday night and quilted it yesterday.

This quilt has a great story to go along with it.  My friend Laila, who lives in Norway, had made four quilts like this and every time she shared pictures of them on her blog I would just drool!  You can visit her quilting blog here to see her quilts and the pattern is from issue#3 of the Vignette magazine.   I was very drawn to the colors and the geometric design of this pattern.  Well Laila, being the sweet person that she is, sends me her leftover fabrics from her quilts so I can make one!!  This are beautiful Japanese fabrics and they even feel just as nice as they look…but they did have a bit of an adventure on there way across the Atlantic.  You see when I got to the post office to pick up Laila’s package and I gave the notice card to the lady at the counter …she give me this look and says “Oh this package, it should be an example of how not to mail packages!”   No, not my special package of beautiful fabric!   She then brings out my package all wrapped in plastic and said that something liquid broke inside.  Hummm,  I don’t think so!   So I opened up the plastic on the counter to find the package and fabric inside is soaking wet and the center frozen solid!!  No broken bottles so not the senders fault.  Somewhere along it’s travels it sat in a puddle for a very long time and the postal worker who found it just stuck it in a bag for the rest of its trip!  So I brought home my frozen soggy bundle with hopes that I was going to be okay after a thaw and soak in warm water the kitchen sink. Once I was able to pull the fabrics apart I threw then in the washing machine with hopes they would survive and still be good.  Only a few pieces bleed and I was able to salvage most of the fabrics!   Whew!  I was so relieved and now tell people that this fabric was dipped in the Fjords of Norway on its way to me.  The image of it sitting in the back of a delivery truck in a puddle of melting snow is not as exciting to imagine!  :)

I used an extra wide Stonehenge fabric for the backing and the panto is called Bayside.  Since I am keeping this quilt for myself to cuddle with on the couch I used the wool batting that Desley has sent me last year from Australia.  So this truly is an International Friendship quilt!

And look at how well it goes with my Pine Needles wall hanging in my livingroom!  :)