Tribute to Rebecca

In the fall of 2014 Ruth Steiner, Pat Falb, Laurel Horst , and I made the decision to collaborate our joint efforts on a quilt for the 2015 OH MCC relief sale. This time we chose to do a Double Wedding ring design with an applique border. During the last week of December I began cutting the posts and some melons and centers and then in January Ruth and I began looking at our fabric scraps from our previous year's of working together on quilts (?17 years) for the rings and the floral applique. We cut some 388 end pieces, 788 middle arc pieces, 194 melons, and 42 centers. The assembly of the arcs>melons>centers involved curves and I gained some skills in piecing the convex to the concave. How I wished that I had paid attention to my grandmother, Rebecca Gehman, when I was a young girl and would enter her sewing room. The double wedding ring was one of her favorite patterns to work with. Now I would love to have watched her method of constructing the rings.
The melons:

 The beginnings of the rings.

After some concentrated effort I completed my half of the rings:

Ruth joined the 2 halves, appliqued a narrow border to square the edges, sewed on border #1 and then the final applique border and marked the quilt. It is now in the hands of Laurel for completion of applique (most was done while we were working on our piecing) and Laurel and Pat will quilt it for the most part. I am glad I had a chance to work on the DWR design and consider it a tribute to my Grandmother Rebecca.

The first two weeks in February 2015 I have been focusing on finishing 2 other projects. The first one a throw I have been working on off and on for about 2 years for Janelle. I have named it "Moonbeams and Blossoms". I quilted around the flowers and vines and Decatur knotted the rest about 4 " apart.

 It is packaged and ready to send to Janelle this week. Below is the label in "petal form".

The second one was also a throw that Kristin and I designed and worked on for Kay White. We called it a Prayer Quilt as Kay is going through a difficult time with some health issues and receiving chemo and radiation for recurrent cancer. She will be facing a Stem Cell Transplant in March and April at Hershey Medical Center.

 The bird fabric was Kristin's left over from another project. the "bars" were from our stashes, and we did purchase the borders and the fabric used to sash the bird blocks.

 We named it "Beneath the Noble Cedar Tree" from Ezekiel 17:22-24. The throw is packaged and ready for the mail this week. We Decatur Knotted the quilt to hold the layers together.

And now on to other projects and prayers for Kay. Below is a detail of a bird block. The blocks were 9" square. The scripture sections were 3" x 9" with 3 strips of fabric to make it a 9" block.