9-Patch and Snowball Quilt
This was the first quilt I made from vintage fabric. The prints are more 40’s and 50’s so the colors are brighter than some of my other quilts. It’s entirely hand pieced, which is unusual for this pattern since it’s an easy pattern to sew on the machine. When I began to seriously quilt again about 8 years ago, I wanted to hand piece everything. When it came time for the quilting, I did a couple of rows and decided I didn’t enjoy it nearly as much as the piecing. I thought about the church ladies in Ohio who had finished the quilting on my first quilt, Morning Glory in the 70’s (and several quilts for my mother and mother-in-law), and decided to contact them. Mrs. H responded that her group was still quilting and they would be pleased to finish my quilt. I packed up the quilt and mailed it the next day. About a month later I got the quilt back and was so excited to take a look.
Well, friends, you would not have believed what I found. The poor church ladies must have been really old by then because the quilt was a complete mess — the stitches looked like a child had done them, there were really dark pencil lines from tracing the flower template, and the muslin back was covered with little blood stains. I was devastated! After I recovered from the shock, I started the process of taking out all of their quilting and doing it over — one block at a time. Here’s what I used: seam ripper, tweezers, a little cup of diluted Oxyclean, Q-tip, and hairdryer — it took about 6 months to complete. The good thing that happened was that I began to enjoy hand quilting, which is now my favorite part of the quilt-making process.
Mrs. H and her friends were paid, and I never told them that I was unhappy with the result. They had done such beautiful work when they were younger — it made me sad that they were still quilting even though their vision was obviously pretty bad.
I discovered after this quilt was done that one of my pieced blocks and two of the quilted flowers are turned the wrong direction. I couldn’t really fix the pieced block, but I didn’t change the flowers either which is kind of strange since I’m usually sort of a perfectionist about this type of thing. For some reason, it just doesn’t bother me at all.
9-Patch and Snowball
Martha Dellasega Gray, 2001
hand pieced, hand quilted
70″ x 80″
Quilts
Embroidery
Family-Made
Vintage Finds
Vintage Fabric
Children's Books
Work in Progress
Other Needlework
Other Things
Ann Champion wrote,
Oh my! I think I just drooled a little?
Your quilt is gorgeous! Such a wonderful mix of fabrics there. It’s such a shame that the quilting you had done wasn’t right. You sure made lemonaid from those lemons though, ..because the quilting is wonderful now! Good for you..for not giving up..and learning to love the quilting. 
Link | July 25th, 2009 at 3:39 pm
jan wrote,
Martha, this is a beautiful quilt! You are so good with colors – at first glance it looks scrappy, but on closer look, the combinations are perfect!
Link | July 25th, 2009 at 3:49 pm
Ann wrote,
That is an awesome quilt! The fabrics are SOOO pretty! I used to be drawn to browns, but I’ve morphed into a light, bright and cheery lover. It fills that bill to perfection! The beginning and end of its story are beautiful. I’m sorry it had a rocky middle. You must be VERY patient!
When you piece and quilt, do you measure your progress in any way or do you just let it happen. I’ve tried setting goals to completion, but they don’t work for me. It could be that my goals when I DO set them are unrealistic so I’m better off when I don’t. Just curious about what works for you…
Link | July 25th, 2009 at 6:25 pm
barbara wrote,
So beautiful, and I have no idea what’s turned the wrong way – it looks just perfect to me. I was so surprised that the church ladies got your quilt back to you so quickly – any groups I know of like that have waiting lists for the waiting list – but then I read on. That’s kind of sad. All’s well that ends well, though, and your quilt is lovely.
Link | July 26th, 2009 at 10:27 am
Holly wrote,
So lovely! Nobody but the maker of the quilt would see that something was quilted in a different direction…that is the beauty of a hand-made item. You get to know the piece better than anybody else will ever be able to!
Do you have some kind of color pattern in mind when you are putting your quilts together? It all flows so beautifully! I love to think that it happens by chance, but have a sinking feeling that it may involve a skill that I have yet to develop.
Link | July 26th, 2009 at 4:39 pm
Rita wrote,
This quilt is amazing, well worth all that extra effort you went through to get it to look just like this. What incredible perseverance! Love the end result, a truly inspiring quilt.
Link | July 27th, 2009 at 5:10 pm
Quick catch up « Piecemeal Quilts wrote,
[...] repros and is a simple nine patch alternating with snowball blocks, on point. It was inspired by this quilt. I’m using a greenish turquoise fabric for the background fabric. I’ve cut about half [...]
Link | October 25th, 2009 at 9:06 pm
One block or two? « A Quilt A Day wrote,
[...] The irony is that the snowball + nine patch has long been my favorite 2-block variation. I love this scrappy version from Q is for Quilter: [...]
Link | November 23rd, 2009 at 5:51 pm