Tablecloth to Quilt. A "treasure" challenge.

I belong to a wonderful longarm group called, INMQ. Stands for Inland Northwest Machine Quilters.
The group purchased antique and old unfinished quilt tops from many sources. Included were two tablecloths. Of which one I recieved. (Yea!) The challenge was to transform our tops to hopefully quilting masterpieces.  The only thing allowed was actually quilting. No other embellishments allowed. Because of the lace inserts,  a lining was allowed under the top.
After auditioning several colors, I decided on pink. Since the top was feminine anyway might as well go with it!
This is a close up of one side of tablecloth on top of pink fabric.

 After pinning the entire top to the underlay and making sure everything was laying smoothly, it was off to the sewing machine to stitch it all together. This was a very time consuming project!
It took lots of pins!

Falling in  Love with this fabric!
When It was purchased, I didn't know if the colors would match well or if I was adding 7 yards to my stash! I just knew I had to have it.   You know how that goes. Thought it would make a pretty backing for the tablecloth quilt. Then a person could always flip the quilt over for a different look.











 So, after drawing up a few ideas, it was time to load this project onto my wonderful A1 premium elite long arm.
I rolled to the center and quilted away. Using Glide thread in a pale pink.











 I preceded to quilt the beginnings of a lot of curved crosshatching. And I do mean a lot. Using my new rulers from "The Quilted Pineapple". The idea was to give the quilt a more "Victorian" Feel.




So much space to cover. What to do next? I know, I'll make some more feathers! ha.

This looks like a good spot for more curved cross hatching. 

Oh, a stain that came with the tablecloth. I wonder, was it gravy or perhaps wine? Anyway it came out with some oxiclean as a last resort.

 So after quilting what seemed like years, I'm finally on the pink. What to do. At this point I was beyond finished with feathers!! So I drew piano keys, cross hatching, flowers, anything but feathers. Just really didn't want to go there anymore. But nothing looked right. so after two days of staring at it, Feathers it was.










Pleased with the curved feathers and curved cross hatching in the corners. And the fact that it is almost done!!

This is a picture of one side before the feathers. If you look close, you can see the butterflies I made out of the flowers in the tablecloth. Love those. Then if you look at the butterflies in a different way,they look like faces staring at you. Shh. Don't tell. 

Time to bind the quilt. Yea.


On the right, is what it looked like coming of the machine.
While a quilt is on the frame, one can only "see" a small section. So when you remove it it's an OMG experience!




 Can't believe the transformation.
                                                         Turned out awesome.