Tennessee Waltz and a Vintage Missouri Daisy

The Tennessee Waltz quilt above belongs to a client & I quilted it earlier this week with leafy wreaths in the open areas & continuous quilting in the star blocks. It is a lovely quilt, makes my work a joy! I was pleased with the result and the quilt's owner was very happy & that's what counts!
The Missouri Daisy quilt below was a new one to me, but a bit of surfing around the 'net brought forth some good information. I found a couple of patterns for the block & even some quilts for sale. However I did not find this exact setting of the MD blocks with the larger open blocks & intersecting squares set on point, it appears to be rather an unusual setting. I had none of this info. when I first wrote this post so I am adding these new titbits as I discover them!
Most I saw were around the same size, this one is 63" x 77" quilted.
I loaded the daisy quilt top on the machine, knowing that it would present a few challenges as these vintage quilts always do. They sit in storage in various & sundry places, are toted around as the owners move, are often passed from hand to hand & generally suffer from aging 70 or 80 yrs.

This a photo before quilting so I will add the completed quilting pics. later today or tomorrow after I get it bound. The maker appears to have used various shades of neutrals in the 4 piece blocks & you can see there is also some age discolororation in places but a careful laundering may remove some of that. The original cutting & so the hand piecing are both a little irregular in places, back then the scissors weren't always very sharp, there were no nice templates like we have now, no rotary cutters etc & no daylight bulbs!
As you can see the petals are 3D, a more difficult technique for the piecer to have produced & according to one writer, only attempted by experienced quilters. It would also be much more difficult to sew by hand rather than machine, it must have been quite challenging & I would not want to have to do it that way myself.
The petals are gathered onto the adjoining pieces which are also for the most part gathered onto the center circles. Now I freely confess that I know little about this pattern so I don't know if the pieces surrounding the petals are meant to be gathered? Some of the patterns appear to be that way but the quilting shown for them is only outline. If anyone has personal experience with this pattern I would love to hear from you, because now I am quite curious!

The gathering was more generous in some blocks & other areas were fairly flat. That said it became impossible in some areas to avoid little tucks, though I spritzed the worriesome areas & applied the hairdryer [it can produce varying degrees of success in easing the fullness] then stippled around patting & manipulating the fullness to distribute it as best I could. I didn't want to apply any chemical products to the quilt such as starch so the water/ hairdryer trick was my only option to try & reduce tucks in the excess fabric. Fortunately the fabrics are busy little 30's prints & I am using an off- white thread-Signature Parchment- so the occasional little tucks are not very obvious.


Because of it's age a few minor repairs were necessary to seams & in a couple of areas where one part of the outside block didn't quite reach all the way to the edge.
I decided to quilt a leafy wreath in the larger open areas, it's a bit more forgiving than feathers & less formal & I like the way it helps to draw the eye around & gives overall gentle movement to the quilt. It's such a charming quilt & so unusual that it deserved something a bit different to set it off. Spending time on this old charmer has me quite besotted with the design so I am now searching for a top of my own to quilt-& keep!

Here the quilting shows up nicely on the back.
It's all bound, now I can mail it off to the owner who is no doubt anxious to see how Granny's quilt turned out.