Cyber TOGA Flimsie 2

Yesterday I pulled these out of a box where they've been stored since I made them in the 80's.  They've been out a few times as I remembered the classes I made them for.  Some were sample; some were made in class to show students how I made them.

All that hand piecing!...
Below is the above block on the front:

My mom's Aunt Bessie made a quilt from this pattern for my Aunt Louise, who was allowed to have a quilt top because she got married (I didn't).  However, she just gave Aunt Louise the quilt top, and in the early 80's, Aunt Louise put it in the washer.  Choral "duh....." right here.  I agreed to repair it and add a border--the sides of those tiny diamonds are only an inch long! I replaced quite a few of those stars.  Aunt B had used a plain white for the background, and Aunt Louise supplied me with some that was almost identical.

She eventually had some Kansas Mennonite quilters do the quilting--and I have been privileged to sleep under it.

Now that block I made to commemorate all the work on Aunt Louise's quilt is part of this:

I finished it about 6:00 p.m. tonight and took it outside to photograph--which explains all the sunny spots on the flimsie.
A closeup of some of the pieced sections:

And the project from 20 years ago that started this quilt top:

Hard to see, I know.  You might want to right-click and open it in a new tab or window.  I found that layered and with one little heart handquilted--so I ripped it out and decided it could be the star in a new quilt because I could machine quilt it.
When I found the blocks that included more of those 1980s brownish pinks, I knew I could put them to use in a quilt top so they'd bring people a lot more joy than if they were just stuffed in a box somewhere.
All those brown pinks and smoky blues in the 1980's did inspire me to learn to use fiber reactive dyes so I could have fabrics in the colors I saw in my mind.

I knew that putting a bunch of those odd sized blocks together would be a challenge.  I didn't know it would take all day. 
The pale pink in the border is a Benartex printed with a white paint-like floral design.  I'm thinking it was the very beginning of the white on white background phase, although Benartex had printed them on really pale pastel goods.  (I remember the fabric chain I was teaching for getting in yards and yards of those flatfolds.)

I did start my long day of sewing by having breakfast outside--probably the last time I'll get to do that on a weekday this year--unless my next day off (around October 22) finds us still having warm weather.

I hope all the other people taking part in the cyberTOGA had fun too.  (TOGA stands for Treadle On Gathering & Academy--this wasn't the same as having an in-person gathering, but at least I knew that around the country there were other people working on their projects at the same time I was.)

Happy quiltmaking (and may everyone returning to work tomorrow have a glorious day!)