July Quilt

I finally finished it! (Again). Many long years ago when I was expecting my second child, one of my sisters and I decided to make matching wall hanging quilts for each month of the year.  We worked all summer designing and sewing them and finished all the tops together.  I, then, hand quilted and bound my set in time for each month in which I was to hang them.  Since these were some of the first quilts I made, I now look at some of them and they bother me for some reason or another.  My July quilt probably bothered me the most.  I decided I was going to remake it when I decided on the perfect quilt pattern for it. 

A year ago last spring, I bought a quilting book called, "Scrap Therapy" by Joan Ford.  I loved her ideas as I read through several pages of the sample viewing on Amazon, since I HATE throwing away any useable fabric, so I thought if I was going to use her ideas, I better buy the book so she got the proceeds.  When I had the book in hand, I read though it, oddly enough, cover to cover.  She had a quilt in it, that when I saw it, I knew it was going to be my July quilt - she had even done it in Red, White and Blue, though even if she had done it in another theme, I'm sure I would have chosen it.  I love it.  So, I made it, except for the border which I had bought several years before knowing I was going to redo my July quilt and one fat quarter of dark blue fabric, entirely out of scraps.  I then tried my hand at some new machine quilting techniques.  I'm still not sure that machine quilting is my favorite, though it was good to try them out.  Here it is:

So, how did I finish it "again"?  Well after I finished it last year, I decided that there was something about the way I put on the binding that was not right - the quilt needed to be cut down just a little bit, so I started unpicking the binding.  I was halfway done when I put it away to wait while I finished something more pressing.  And it sat, and it sat, and it sat, sat, sat, sat. Until last week when I pulled it out and finished unpicking it while sitting at my kids' swimming lessons.  Then I was on a roll and I came home and finished it all the way.  There are still mistakes I see.  I couldn't enter it in a show, but the rest of the mistakes are not worth another redo, and I'm happy to have it on my wall.

And the old July quilt . . . I gave to a wonderful lady who loved it and will cherish it.