You may remember my dear friend Olivia and the joy I had as I began to teach her how to quilt ~ way back in December. Olivia and her family are missionaries in Estonia and they were here on furlough. They had plans to visit family in California over Christmas and we had to take a break from her lessons. When Olivia and her family returned to Wisconsin in the end of January, she was very excited to get back to quilting (click here to read part 1 of this story). She had completed all of her blocks before she left for California and in her first class in 2022 she sewed them together,
and added the border. Her enthusiasm is contagious ~ and her quilt top is lovely. She’s decided to back her quilt with fleece.
So her assignment was to make a trip back to the fabric store and choose something that would match her quilt top, since she was planning to turn the back to the front in place of a binding.
That was the plan, but when Olivia arrived with her backing fleece we discovered something weird – the width of the fabric, right off the bolt, was not a consistent 60″.
I’ve never seen this before. The width is 60″ at the top of the photo above, but it shrinks towards the bottom to 56″ ~ and it isn’t wide enough to bring it forward as a binding. So Olivia got to learn how to bind a quilt the traditional way 😊. Have you ever had such a drastic width variance with fleece?
Back to Olivia ~ she pinned the layers together and chose to quilt with a serpentine stitch over all the seams. She spent over an hour quilting and once again she didn’t want to stop when her mom came to pick her up (I really love this girl!)
Due to our conflicting schedules we couldn’t get together again for over 2 weeks. So when we did we knew it would be our last time because Olivia and her family were heading back to Estonia soon 😔. We made the most of it starting with a quick time for cookies and catching up. I asked her about her love for creating art and she showed me photos of some of her work which she had on her phone. She especially loves doing portraits and abstracts. I couldn’t resist sharing a few of her favorite pieces here.
I know both her grandmother and Talya and she captured them beautifully. She is a young women of many talents – and she gives God the glory for all of them!
Back to binding. Olivia sewed it to the quilt, turned it to the back, and machine stitched it in place with her favorite Serpentine stitch.
All before her mom came to take her home. The quilt was done in time for a grand finale photo!
I’m going to miss my dear friend and all the fun stitching and conversations we shared. Rumor has it she will be coming back to Wisconsin to go to school at Maranatha Baptist University here in Watertown. What a joy to have her near. Until then I’m praying God will keep Olivia and her family safe in Estonia, and use them to further the Gospel there.
Mary says
What a wonderful story and fun experience to share. I am sure quilting will be in Olivia’s medium repertoire!
I see your black, white and gray quilt also! That would be cool! You could make the sun bright yellow.
xoxo Mary
Home Smokowicz says
I enjoyed Olivia’s story about her quilt. She is indeed a girl of god given talent and it shows in her works of art. God bless you a and her for sharing.
judy says
Lovely story
Laurelie Neubauer says
Yes, God has given Olivia an artistry talent. It’s inspiring to see young people creating such beautiful artwork. Motivates me to get my things sewed..
she’ll have great memories and I’m sure you’ll see her again Chris.
Blessings to you all,
Laurie
" class="comment-author-link" rel="external nofollow" itemprop="url">WANDA E KRUGER says
So glad to read about Olivia before she left the states; very talented young lady. Thanks for sharing her.
Wanda