2025 OneThing #13 - FINISH Teresa's Brother's Quilt and set a date to get it back to her

This one has been a long time coming! I won't put all the info here, but my friend Teresa's mom died in September 2023. (Here's the obit.) When I was subbing at NPMS that fall, she asked for my advice about a quilt her mother had started for her brother Gregory. Their mother, Patty Nelsen, had hand traced, cut out, and pieced the top in two pieces. She had layered each piece with batting and backing.

She had basted with thick green thread. She had started the laborious process of hand quilting it by stitching in the ditch.

Teresa wasn't sure what to do with it. I offered to help her and initially planned to finish the quilting by hand, as her mother had started it. Quickly, I realized that was not feasible. It would take more hours than I was willing to spend. In December of 2024, I met with Teresa to talk about a plan to machine quilt it. We talked about the thread color, the binding, the label, etc.

I went to my friend Rose Allen's house to machine quilt it in January (before the Florida trip). It took two days to quilt the two pieces, then another day to finish the quilting after I sewed the two pieces together. As I warned my friend, there are some wrinkles sewn in; it couldn't be helped without removing some of the existing stitching.

 

I added the binding and the label. (I've taken "final" pics, but am not adding them here now.)

I wrote a letter for Gregory and am ready to deliver it to Teresa! We have set a coffee date for March 25, so everything I mentioned for my "One Thing" is done. That feels so good.