Celebrate!

You know that song by Kool and The Gang called Celebration? Well, imagine that is playing in the background while you read this post.

Amie has finished her postage stamp quilt top! And I do hereby pronounce that as a reason to celebrate! I am sure Amie was doing a little happy dance when she clipped that last thread off the machine. She posted both to Facebook and an email to me to announce the good news.

Is it not gorgeous?!?! What a labor of love, and what a varied and interesting story behind its construction. Here is part of Amie's email with the final statistics from on this heirloom.

 I really can't believe I did it. It was a lot of fun to sort through all the scraps and pick out what to use for the last blocks.  It might be a Postage Stamp quilt, but I find it to also be an I-Spy quilt.  I really did a lot of fussy cutting.  You can find all kinds of things when you take some time and really study it.   You can also find several fabrics sewn in wrong side up - oops! 

Here are my final stats:

56 12-inch blocks

8064 little 1-inch squares (some more square than others!)

fabric donated by 13 friends and family

AND 132 Grit readers from 37 states

around 4 years to complete (huge time lapses when I didn't work on it or I had other projects to work on)

3 big tubs of leftover fabrics

Of course even though I am calling it a finish, it still needs to be quilted and bound.  I want to find a wide quilt back for it since it has so many seams already.  If you were binding it would you keep with the scrappy-ness and piece a binding of many fabrics or would you select a solid binding to calm the chaos?  I've gone back and forth trying to decide.

Look at how far the drop is on this side; I have to believe she centered it on the bed. What a nice size.
What do you readers think about a scrappy binding? Or should she use one solid binding? Please share your recommendations and thoughts on the matter here, so that Amie can use the input to make her decision.

Amie had additional news and info to share in her email:

As for as the leftover scraps, my mom and sister are spending the day next Saturday and we are going to start piecing the Gypsy Wife quilt.  The pattern calls for 60 assorted fabric strips.  I've got that covered! 

A lot of people sent fabric that they had cut into various sized squares, mostly 2 or 2 1/2 inch.  I have separated those out into a separate container to make baby quilts to donate to an organization I belong to that makes warm weather items for the homeless.  Last year I think we donated around 10,000 hats, scarves, baby blankets and lap robes. Check out the website: knittingcrochetingministry.jimdo.com

On another note, today the sailboat quilt was given to my friend at her baby shower.  I am happy to report that it got rave reviews.  The baby will be named Noah, so little boats were very appropriate.  It's funny to me that non-quilters always want to know how long it took to make.

To see the sailboat quilt, you can click here. To see previous posts about Amie and her amazing project, do a search over in the search box.

Today, I am off for a day of sewing at my friend Terry's. I hope to have a work shirt finish to share with you tomorrow.

Happy Quilting, Friends!