Noriko - 2002
Hand-made the templates - hand-drew and hand-cut the patches - and hand-pieced eleven "Bear Paw" blocks and two corner units of a twelfth block. Before moving to England - she gave the completed blocks and cut patches to her friendly, neighborhood accountant -
Kitty(Me) - 2009
Who machine-pieced the two remaining corner units of the twelfth block - altering the design slightly** - and assembled the quilt top with alternating plain muslin blocks. (The better to show off Noriko's beautiful blocks!)
Kitty(I) used the remaining cut patches to machine-piece three more blocks for the backing - assembled the backing - prepared the binding - the hanging sleeve - and the label.
(I wanted it to be easy to distinguish between the blocks that had been hand-pieced by Noriko and the blocks that had been machine-pieced by me.)
Kitty(I) then sent the quilt to her(my) friend -
Mary - 2009
Who machine-quilted the quilt on her long-arm quilting machine and hand-stitched the binding, the hanging sleeve, and the label. She then returned the quilt to Kitty(me) who then returned it to Noriko to enjoy - finally finished and looking good - with a little help from her friends.
with white thread so as not to detract from the blocks on the front. It shows up beautifully on the dark green on the back of the quilt.)
(Here's a closeup of one of Noriko's blocks)
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** Just for fun - which block is the twelfth block?
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Anyway - that's what the label says - (The stuff in parentheses is extra info for this blog post.)
But there's more to the story -
Epilogue -
Kitty(I) emailed Noriko to double check her address before actually mailing the quilt to her. Noriko replied and graciously declined the offer of the quilt - she had meant it for me to keep!! When she came back to California on vacation that fall, she included a visit to me - and was able to see the final quilt. (She still insisted that I keep it!) We had a very nice visit!
And - as my sister said - "I got to see my friend - and - I got to keep the quilt!"
This quilt is truly special - and I will always think of it as Noriko's quilt. All of that hand-work is simply amazing!! You really should see it up close!
And - at meinca-mainer's suggestion - I entered this quilt in the Weekly Themed Contest - so - once again - VOTE FOR ME!! Thanks!!
Talk to you later - gotta go - gotta sew -
1 comment:
AHa! The bottom center block on the front is the 12th block as it has fewer points than all the others. And I never should have told you to enter that contest!lol
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