The Great Reconstruction

There were plenty of really good guesses as to what Gregory was holding in his outstretched hands last week, everything from Santa's beard material to shorn wool to pasta remnants to raw cotton to milkweed silk and cotton candy; NO to all of the above, but thanks for playing along. 

Here's the answer, pictured left. Shocking isn't it? This is what's left of polyester batting, it has morphed into another strange and weird material all together, this after 300+ machine washings and dryings. 🤯 

It all began six years ago, innocently enough, like all good stories do. 

This picture appeared in a blog post back in November of 2014. The then 4-year-old wanted a "soft quilt" for his birthday, one with "cowboys, farms, tractors, trains, horses and race cars" on it. He didn't want it to be "quilted" but rather tied, instead, for loft and softness. I made the top all from flannels that I found on the Internet searching for his specific motif requests and backed it with Minkee (in a race car print) for additional softness. I filled it with an extra-loft poly batting, he loved it. The now 10-year-old loves it still. In fact, it's been his constant companion for the last six years and had fallen into a state of lumpiness and disrepair that's even hard to describe. I offered to make him a new one. 

He wanted nothing to do with a replacement quilt, not at all! He wanted his soft quilt repaired "that's all" he whispered to me. That's all. As you can see from the photo above it was replete with holes and split seams, the batting needed replacing and I set to work. First I removed all of the binding, wrapped it around a card for later and cut out each of the ties, one by one.

Slowly, it all came apart. There was really very little of that original heinous batting remaining, what was still in there had pretty much settled into the four corners. 

So weird!

With the top freed from its batting, backing and binding, I re-stitched and reinforced each seam all over again. 

Once that was done I turned my attention to patching up the holes that weren't in the seam lines. 

Luckily, I still had a stack of the original flannels used it the construction to make the patches. You can see how faded the top has become compared to original pieces.

Now that the top was whole again, I layered it with two layers of poly batting (this time I used a more stable batt, one with scrim) and commenced the tying. It's a time consuming and tedious task, but let's be honest here-- we will do anything for our grandchildren. I put on a Hallmark movie while I worked.

Finally, it was time to reapply the binding. I was fearful that the binding might not fit the same way, once removed, and held my breath while pinning it in place; but, my fears were for nothing, it fit perfectly! This was the ideal job for Saturday afternoon while my achey-self was battling the side effects of the second dose of the 2-part shingles vaccine. I sat by a cozy fire in the fireplace and hand stitched this down between naps. I kept reminding myself that the temporary side-lining was far superior to actually contracting shingles! Bright and early Sunday morning I felt much, much better...

...and Gregory's "soft quilt" was all done- once again! This reconstruction was quite the undertaking, but a sweet boy's quiet words kept replaying in my mind: "I just need it repaired, that's all." 💗 Is there any higher compliment that can be paid to a quiltmaker anywhere, a quilt that's literally been loved to death? I think not. This is the Velveteen Rabbit of quilts right here. We went by his house to drop it off yesterday afternoon.

This was all the thank you that I needed. Just like I said six years ago, "I think he likes it!"

Life is Good!