The Americana Stencil Quilt!

This is my biggest project I have completed so far this year and I am so happy about it.  It has been a long, long time since I have done a quilt, and to be honest, there was a point some time ago I was pretty sure my days of quilting were over and done.  But my big retirement project as really spurned me to do a lot of projects I hadn't really planned on doing.  So much the better!

I was perusing eBay, one of my favorite activities I'm afraid, and stumbled upon this quilt panel of stenciled folk motifs.  As soon as I saw it I was really inspired.  It was the chicken stencil that really captured my heart.

I carefully cut them out, making sure the stencils were evenly centered.  I was a nervous wreck worrying about cutting them wrong.  But in the end I was able to cut all twelve of them.  Phew!

I cut 3 1/2" strips of the blue fabric I found at Hobby Lobby to block each stencil.  Then I cut 2 1/2" strips of the red fabric to join the quilt blocks together.  Once that part was done I cut 6 1/2" strips of the red fabric and made the border along the outside of the quilt blocks.  The quilt top was done!

Next step was to buy four yards of off white muslin to match the stencils.  I cut it in half and turned the 2 yard pieces sideways and stitched them together to make the quilt back.  After sandwiching the back and front with the cotton batting I pinned it all over with a ton of safety pins.

I used my walking foot to quilt it with blue thread on top and off white in the bobbin.  Honestly this was the hardest part of the job, mainly keeping this bad boy under control while I stitched away.  If it hadn't been for the walking foot I don't think I could have done this.

After trimming the quilt edges I cut 1 1/2" strips from the blue fabric for binding.  I stitched them on the edge of the quilt, turned them over to pin them in place and then handstitched the whole binding with little hidden stitches.

Full size quilt

And then I was done.  Whooo hooooooooo!