It's a...

Finish!  Well, not quite...but a flimsy for sure.

It's been four years in the making and I knew when I started that it would be a V-E-R-Y long WIP.  I didn't honestly think that it would take this long but I do have some valid excuses like a long distance move and a blip on the cancer radar during that time.  

The inspiration for my Grandmother's Flower Garden quilt came from this antique one that I purchased about ten years ago on one of my travel teaching trips to Ohio.  There was cool General Store in Hudson, Ohio that was closing and the owner was selling off her personal collection of antique quilts the day my friend and I happened to stop by.  The GFG is one of two quilts that I purchased that day...the other is a red and white one.  And just to keep things in perspective, this was about four years before I retired and decided to teach myself how to quilt.

The original GFG quilt is hanging from the upstairs restroom door.  It is signed and dated 1923, so it is 90 years old and in virtually pristine condition.

This is the quilt from where I garnered the inspiration to make mine.  I wanted it to resemble this one as closely as possible.

The two longer sides on the original were squared off...  

and the shorter sides were bound around the outer hexie shape shown in the photos above and below.

That's the look I had hoped to replicate when I came up with this...

Yuk!

I spent a very restless night thinking about it.

Trash it or try to save it?

If the truth be told, I honestly came very close to chucking it in the trash but decided to see if you all had any suggestions as to how I might salvage it.  I posted about my dilemma here and mentioned that I had a Plan B.

    
I believe it was the very next day that Laurel (no blog) sent me this photo that she had saved from Pinterest as her inspiration for when the time came to make her own GFG.  

The quilt was made by Julia from Julia's Place.

In my mind, this was so similar to my "Plan B" and I fell in love with it.  Isn't it exquisite?

Admittedly, I was very despondent that my original plan would not come to fruition without some additional long and tedious hours which after four years of on-and-off work was just not going to happen.  When I saw Julia's quilt, a calm came over me and I knew that my Plan B was going to be alright.

Thank you, Laurel for sharing Julia's beautiful interpretation of a GFG...and thank you, Julia for making it.

And here is my Plan B.

A close up of the borders...

And another close up of the 3" hexagon flower that I hand appliquéd in each of the four outermost cornerstones.

I am happy to say that I am thrilled with the final outcome...and I know that I'll be even more over-the-moon happy after my friend Alice adds her magic quilting to it.

Happy stitching!