Diamonds in the Dirt

I'm linking up to Amy's Blogger's Quilt Festival, and I hope to share this quilt with interested quilters that haven't run across my blog before.

This quilt can be found in the "Home Machine Quilted" category,
 if you wish to vote for it.  Thanks !

This quilt








 was made for my older brother, John, in appreciation for helping me through a difficult year.  You see, my husband is disabled and can no longer drive, which leaves all of our normal driving to me.  When I had to schedule surgery to have a (benign, thank GOD) tumor removed from my vocal chords, John agreed to drive me to the hospital and back home again, a nearly-two-hour-drive in each direction.  It was supposed to be an overnight stay, but turned out to be 5 days, during which he drove back and forth to make sure that my husband also got to visit.  Then, he stepped up and drove me for all return trips, which turned out to be quite a few.  But he would never accept any money for gasoline, causing me to hide money within his car on a couple of occasions.

So, a couple of months later, I had just finished this quilt top, which I just 'threw together', trying to use up older fabrics from my much ignored 'brown drawer'.    Falling in love with it, I realized that it would make a perfect couch throw for John, and I started concentrating on finishing it for him.

I basted it outside under my carport on such a windy day that the wind picked up the basting frame and tossed it off of its corner supports !  After that, things went smoothly, and I machine-quilted it on my old Singer model-15 cabinet-model machine, using an open-toed walking foot.

I followed the ditch on the long seams, and then used a soap sliver to mark the cables from a stencil, and stitched them.

Here, I had quilted the first cable with white thread, and found that it
created too much contrast.  I removed these stitches and changed
 to a medium brown, which let the contours stand out rather
 than the thread.

  I switched to my nearly 30-year-old White sewing machine to use a triple zigzag stitch for the wavy lines running down the light strips.

The batting is Hobbs' 80 cotton/20 polyester batting,

and the backing is a Riley Blake print purchased from Fabric.com.

 I used triangles that were trimmed from the front 'diamond-squares', to make the arrows on the back.  The label was signed with the scripture, "The steps of a good man are ordered of the LORD".

I surprised him with the quilt at church one evening.  He took it home and started downstairs to his basement 'study', to leave the quilt on his recliner.   Seeing him heading down, his wife quickly suggested that the quilt might do better duty upstairs where they BOTH could enjoy it.

 Hearing that relayed to me, I decided that it was the right decision, praise the LORD, to make him this quilt; and, I must have done alright, as they do me honor by using it to grace the living room of their beautifully decorated home.

This is me, comfy in p.j.'s in my own little home,
 with the just completed quilt top back in February,
I think.

The quilt started out measuring 56 x 80 inches, but shrunk a bit in the dryer, to finish at a measurement of 53 x 76 inches.  That's a LOT of shrinkage......John is a TALL guy....hope it still fits !  He hasn't complained, anyway !

The pattern was derived from making a few changes to a design that I saw in a quilter's catalog.

Feel free to follow my blog if you don't mind a whole lot of normal life mixed in with bits of quilting and knitting !  Enjoy the rest of the festival !