For the Love of Sewing (the super secret surprise unveiling)

My grandmother taught me how to sew with old pillowcases and barbie dress patterns. Ever since then I have had a love affair with needle and thread. One of the reasons I sew is because I get to make things for the people that I love. I made this quilt for a dear friend of mine, just because she likes butterflies, and just because she is the best friend a gal could ever have. I had this quilt idea in my head for years but could not find the right vintage butterfly quilt blocks. One day the perfect vintage quilt top magically appeared on ebay and I made her butterfly quilt dream a reality.

The butterflies are vintage hand appliqued quilt blocks and the border fabric is also vintage. The striped squares are reproduction prints that replaced plain muslin squares on the original quilt top. The sewing was not so great and the plain muslin squares were stained so I took the whole top apart, washed it and put it back together again with some new fabric.

Here is a shot of the back where I pieced together some Kona cotton and leftover fabric from the front. I think my measurements were off or I was working on this late night because how I originally planned it and how it turned out are totally different. I was sweating there for a minute wondering if I had enough fabric to finish the back but it all worked out in the end.
I love these labels. I ordered then from Fancyweaver. I know it's not a USA based company but the price was right, they were easy to work with and the labels look great. They are end fold labels but just long enough I can unfold them and tuck it into a corner of a quilt.

Here is another one of my hand embroidered quilt labels.

On a side note these pictures were taken in my grandmothers back yard, the backyard of the same house I learned to sew in. She has two perfect trees that I stretched a piece of rope between to take quilt pictures. I say I but you would not catch my butt climbing a ladder up that tree. Its my husband that does all the heavy lifting while I stand safely on the ground directing.

So tell me, why do you sew?