Tina's quilt - the front

Tina's quilt - the back!

This quilt is so fun! I love it, and not just because I am partial to birds, birdhouses, bees, and purple. Tina used a lot of stencils on this quilt. As you'll read below, it's almost like two quilts. Both sides are quilted differently.  She was kind enough to include the stencils she used. I put some links below if you want to look closely at them. 

The front of the quilt is the side with all the blocks
Angel Wings, 30444 and Feather Swirled Border, 30612

On the back, in all the white diagonal squares, I used a lot of stencils
I love the horse head, 30488            

Angel wings 30444
Open feather heart 30425               

Feather heart  30330
Feather wreath with grid center.  30364.           

Feather block 30460
Feather wreath. 30326 

Tina writes this about her quilt:

This Vintage fabric has been quite the project for me.

The fabric is from my Grandmother and Grandfathers chicken farm in the 1930s. At that time, they stopped selling feed in burlap bags and switched to mostly floral printed fabric. I have been saving it for years, not quite sure just what I wanted to do.

In April of 2021, my colon ruptured. I had sepsis running through my system and came close to death. I had emergency surgery and a colostomy. Thank God, after eight months, my fantastic Surgeon was able to reverse it after a four-hour surgery. 

I am grateful I have been able to return to my active life. I am 72 years old young. I trail ride my horse, maintain my barn and garden and make quilts for Quilts of Valor, Friends, and of course myself. 

Okay, back to the quilt. I really needed something to do to keep my mind occupied while praying and hoping for the reversal. I came across all these different blocks and decided to try to use a different fabric in every block. I was quite happy with the blocks, but they didn’t even put a dent in my stash.

When thinking about the back, I decided it would be great to have a Vintage back. I just winged it and made it up as I sewed.

Now to quilt it. I accidentally came upon Full Line Stencils while watching videos. I wanted to quilt them in the white blocks. I quilted the back to a piece of flannel so I could use the stencils.  For the front, I quilted to regular batting, quilted it, and then put the four layers together.

Putting them together was a challenge because I didn’t want to disturb what I had already quilted on each side. I needed to join the four layers. I thought about tying it and decided against it. I just ran some vertical and horizontal lines every so often, being careful not to sew over the center of blocks on the other side.

I am very happy with the way it turned out. I have been making tops for a few years and quilting with pantographs. I really want to free motion but do not like practicing. The stencils are helping me gain the confidence to free motion on my old Tin Lizzie 18.

So that’s my story,

Tina Spano,   Southern New Jersey

Thank you for sharing that wonderful story Tina! Your quilt has waited a lot of years to become what you've made it into. What a happy ending for a stack of feed sack cloth. Your Grandparents would be surprised and proud of you. 

I love sharing stories about people's quilts. Feel free to email me stories you have about quilts you've made, quilts your family has enjoyed, quilts you're proud of, quilts you're embarrassed about (you can be anonymous), and I will put them in the newsletter. I can't be the only one who loves hearing stories like these. I know thousands are out there, and I would love to share them.