February in A Lovely Year of Finishes

I can hardly believe we are already up to February 2014! January was one of the coldest months I remember, and here in the shadows of the Blue Ridge Mountains we had a fair amount of snow. With all of the snow days off school I was able to breeze right through my January ALYoF goal...we'll see how I do for February :o)

This month my goal is to finish this vintage patchwork quilt. There is a story behind this patchwork. This partial quilt top was found among the craft items belonging to the mom of a sweet friend from church. It is made of bits of fabric from her children's clothing and dates back to about the 1950's. 

My friend asked if it could be made into a finished quilt. When I looked at it I knew it would need to be disassembled and reassembled in order to make a sturdy quilt. Many of the seams had been stitched with less than 1/8" seam allowance and were already coming apart. It took several sessions with the seam ripper, but with perseverance I got them all apart. 

I knew these bits of fabric would look lovely in a granny square layout. (The little flowers are tablecloth weights--it was bitterly cold and extremely windy when I took this picture!) Most of the the fabrics are soft shades so I used Kona Cotton Bone for the background. I love how visually soft the top now looks!

My February goal is to complete this quilt. I purchased additional Kona Bone for the backing and DS Quilts Farm Stand Dots in beige for the binding. I plan on doing diagonal straight lines for the quilting using an off-white thread. 

I'm looking forward to getting this one off my work-in-process list. I'm linking up the the February Goal Party for A Lovely Year of Finishes!