mildred and ethel, a finish

 

after nearly 5 years, mostly due to extensive handwork, "mildred and ethel" is done.

looking at these full-quilt photos, i'm remined once again that a full-quilt shot gives such a different impression than the experience of seeing a quilt up close gives. yes, you get the idea of the overall pattern and general colors, but particularly with patterned fabrics, it loses much of the impact of the close-up feel of the quilt. the details are lost and the color play is not the same. quilts are so much nicer firsthand.

there, now we can see a little more what it's like to have this quilt in your lap.

this section happens to catch all 6 liberty prints together. top to bottom, left to right: eve, ed, poppy & daisy, betsy, xanthe sunshine, and tiny (something - i looked for nearly an hour yesterday and couldn't get any more than that).

three of these prints i did not like at all when they arrived in my mailbox, and i positively loathed that grungy green crossweave. but, for once, throwing good fabric in with bad worked a miracle and i now adore this quilt top to bottom, every piece.

really, she deserves much better finish photos than i took, but to be done properly, i'd have to photograph her either in cherry blossom season in utah, because what i remember of grandma gg (mildred) is her backyard cherry trees, or in a flower garden with the logan temple in the background, because that's what i remember of grandma ethel's home. 

the fact is, my house isn't great for quilt photos, and my yard only has one reliably decent spot, which i already used earlier this week for "crossroads." perhaps, someday, if and when we ever build the new house, i will have a light-filled studio for gorgeous process shots, pretty places for vignettes of completed quilts, and lovely yard for outdoor photos. but right now i don't.

one item of note about this quilt - i made quite possibly the most perfect mitered corner ever on this quilt. everything about it came together just right, surprising and pleasing me to no end. i'm no quilting perfectionist, but i sure can appreciate when things do work out exactly as they should. 

this right here is the reason this quilt took so long to complete - all the green handquilting in the diamonds. i started out doing a different design in each diamond, but that quickly changed to doing this design in most of them.

if you look you can see i also outlined the prints in white. because it is less visible than the greens and because i had already sewn across the bottoms of the triangles, i didn't go back and add more white quilting in the center of the print diamonds. also, it would have taken forever. i do love the effect it created, i just wish i was faster at handquilting so i could do it more often.