You can buy quilt tops on eBay!

I'm not sure why it took me so long to realize that you can buy quilt tops on eBay (after all, you can buy pretty much anything on eBay). But it wasn't until I was reading in an online forum that a quilter had bought quilt tops on eBay to practice her longarm quilting on that I started browsing their listings of finished quilt tops. Wow! They have lots! And now I have two more UFOs (UnFinished Objects). One of them arrived in my mailbox yesterday, the other should show up sometime next week

SO here is my new project:



Oliver has already decided that is is a good nap quilt. It is queen-sized, so it's going to be an adventure cramming it through the sewing machine when I quilt it.


The top has some construction issues. I could see the border wave in the auction pictures, so I knew about that when I bid on it. The outer border is 100 percent bias edges, so that was unsurprising (bias edges stretch, causing the border wave). I sewed about two dozen tucks into the border after I ironed it to reduce the wave. Not all the block corners come to a perfect point, and there is some fullness in the center of the quilt, but nothing that I can't quilt out. I'm not going to try re-sewing anything in the center of the quilt unless I find some seams that are so skimpy that they might fray open. I didn't find any holes when I pressed it, but I'll do an examination of the seams from the back before I baste it.

I dug around in my fabric stash and found an extra-wide blue-on-blue print backing fabric that is a close enough match to the quilt top. I have decided to experiment with using a wool batting that I got for Christmas last year in this quilt. I typically use cotton or a cotton-poly blend batting, although I have tried 100 percent poly and bamboo; this is the first time I've used wool (and possibly the last, it was kinda pricey). Supposedly the Quilters Dream wool batting can be machine washed and dried on cool. I'll report back if it comes out crib-sized after the first wash. I have been sketching quilting designs on plastic overlays to work out the machine quilting plan. It's a rainy Sunday afternoon. I hope to get it basted today. If the cats will move off of it, that is.