Peto Revisited

Yay! It's done. After 13 years I finally finished my reproduction of Florence Peto's quilt, Where Liberty Dwells. 

 

When we--The Heritage Quilt Project of NJ--started writing A Passion for Quilts: The Story of Florence Peto, I had made up my mind to try and reproduce her quilt.

Well, I made the center medallion and finished the applique work but by the time I got to the blue framed medallion I called it quits--and it sat for years.

The broderie perse flowers were fun to do and I like the way they turned out.

Florence's signature bow was a bit of a challenge. I just kept enlarging a xerox copy of the original from a photograph and used it as my pattern.

Where Florence used wonderful antique fabrics for her applique, I had to resort to more modern ones. I thought this scene worked quite well.  

Finally, in 2010 I was motivated to finish the applique work. I wanted to use the baseball player fabric for my great-grandfather, Frank Hankinson, who played ball from 1878-1888.

Many of the patriotic fabrics that I used in the outer borders were from my dear friend, Natalie Hart. Here's Florence's signature bow again with George.  All the quilting is either straight line or cross-hatch.

I used a presidential toile on the back. 

When all the quilting was done and the binding was on I started to remove the blue marker quilting lines by wetting the fabric. Much to my dismay, the next day I noticed that the red in this Statue of Liberty / Geo. Washington fabric had bled not only on the front of the quilt but right through to the back. 

So beware of this fabric--Patriotic Legacies by Laurene Sinema for South Sea Imports.

I ended up soaking each of the problem areas in a bowl of cold water and putting them on a towel with a Carbona Color and Dirt Grabber sheet both on top and underneath the fabric. After several "treatments" all turned out fine. Whew! Was I ever relieved.

I will be entering this quilt in the Garden State Quilters show in June and need to send in my entry form--tomorrow :)

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Copyright 2013, Barbara Schaffer