Blogger's Quilt Festival - Jack's Chain

 

 

For my 4th time I'm sharing a quilt in the Blogger's Quilt Festival hosted by Amy's Creative Side.  This time I decided to share Jack's Chain.  Many of you have already seen my tutorial on how to piece the top - it's the single most popular post on this blog.  I did, finally, get around to quilting that top, just before Christmas, and gave the quilt as a gift to my daughter Tertia.

So here it is in its natural habitat, complete with Disney princess poster and dirty glasses and homemade teddy bear nightgown.  I think she likes it.  Plus, she's always happy to pose for a picture.

These are the newest pictures -- since I've blogged about Jack's Chain so much there were lots of pictures at earlier stages.  Here are a few:

Jack's Chain was a UFO for a long time, until I resurrected it and finished it last year.  The quilt is 67x94", with scalloped edges.  I backed it with a vintage sheet and used another vintage sheet to make the bias binding (probably a mistake, the high thread count made it difficult to push the needle through, but I managed.)  I like the picture above which shows the detail of the feathered snowflake quilting I did on the center hexagons. It's hard to see in all the other pictures.

 

I go into detail in the tutorial, but I think Jack's Chain is a pattern that is visually fascinating and charming in an old-fashioned way.  It is well within the reach of an intermediate quilter and one, like me, who is too impatient to do English paper piecing but still wants to do hexagons.  You do have to be somewhat stubborn to finish it -- after all, there are a LOT of little 9-patches and Y-seams.  But I'd love to see more quilters bring back this pattern from the golden age of quilting.