VINTAGE PANELS

When can you call fabric "vintage"?  Before heading south, I dug into the depths of my stash, and found some panels that I know that I bought almost 20 years ago.  I decided that it was finally time for a couple of these to become a quilt.

This is the first one to be completed, and the largest in the group.  All I had to do was trim it, give it a good press, using a bit  of spray starch, then find a backing and batting.  I had brought some Christmas fabrics to use up, so one piece was used for the backing, and in my scrap batting, I found a piece that was the perfect size!

( Some say I'm too organized, but after pulling out many pieces of batting to find something to use, I took the time, with DH's help, to roughly measure each piece before storing it in a bag.  Each bag has a list of all the different sizes that are available, so I can see, at a glance, if I have a piece that will do, or two pieces that can be joined to use!)
 
I had fun quilting, first with some "smoke monofilament" thread, doing some stitch in the ditch, then I pulled out my thread boxes and played with various colours to highlight the nose, flowers, eggs in the nest, and mittens.  I used an irridescent mylar thread to outline the snowflakes and quilt the snow, then a light blue variegated thread to quilt the swirls in the blue sky.  I still have to quilt the final blue border, but decided to sew the binding on so I'd have some hand sewing to do while watching TV last night.

Off to my quilting group.......