The Cotheals at Home

As promised, here are some photos of Phebe now that she's quilted! Unfortunately, the photos from my camera didn't turn out very well so most of these photos were taken with my cell phone. The colors are a little brighter and there is some distortion too. Also, I'm not sure if the beautiful quilting will show up very well so I'm going to link to the machine quilter's blog at the end of this post. Please click on the individual photos for a better look. Enjoy!

Whenever I get stressed out, I find myself starting a new quilting project. Quilting is my stress reliever!

I began working on Phebe in April of 2013. My husband's mother had passed away in February and my daughter's wedding in March had really stressed me out. We finally became empty nesters and I needed something to pour myself into.

In June, my mother's health began to deteriorate and I spent many hours sitting with her in her room at the nursing home and during her hospital stays. Phebe was always with me.

In August, hospice was called in to care for my mother and a few days later, she passed away. Planning the funeral, cleaning out her room, taking care of details took time. Feeling like quilting again took even more time but I began to enjoy working on Phebe again. I decided to finish this quilt in memory of both my mother and mother-in-law. Neither of them were quilters but both encouraged me to keep quilting! 

I can't remember at which step I was in September. My two years as our guild's Membership Chair were over which freed more time for me to work on Phebe. However, I felt like I was working in slow motion and not accomplishing much. It is so easy to get bogged down when working on a big quilt so my advice is to find a few quilters to hold you accountable and spur you on!

In fact, I did cheat and start a few UFOs just to help me fight the boredom of working on the same project over and over. At the end of 2013, I realized I hadn't finished a single project during the last twelve months! I couldn't believe it.

Di Ford's pattern for Phebe is her version of a wedding coverlet made for Phebe Warner in approximately 1803. This pattern is in her book, "Primarily Quilts". When I made my quilt, I purposely made Phebe and her husband, Henry Cotheal, appear mature as if they had been married several years versus the younger couple on the wedding coverlet. Even though I will always call my quilt "Phebe", her official name is "The Cotheals at Home". 

Here's a link to information about the Phebe Warner wedding coverlet:
http://www.metmuseum.org/toah/works-of-art/38.59
More information about the maker of the wedding coverlet and quilts inspired by it:
http://quilt1812warandpiecing.blogspot.com/2012/05/sarah-furman-warner-williams.html

Blogger is driving me crazy today. I can't go back and redo things, can't center the text either. Just a pet peeve of mine but that's really driving me nuts. I'm sure not much of my ramblings are making sense so please just enjoy the pictures, LOL!

I do want to especially thank Jan, the machine quilter. Here's a link: http://thesecretlifeofmrsmeatloaf.blogspot.com/2014/02/phebe-mayleens-masterpiece.html to her blog where she plans to post much better close up photos of Phebe. She's done a wonderful job especially stitching in the ditch, making the Ohio Star blocks appear square and just generally covering up a lot of my not the best piecing!

This photo was taken with my camera and the colors seem very blah. I'll be looking for a new camera soon, one for the technology challenged user! Did you know that I'm a Luddite?

More about my other projects coming soon!

Mayleen