The Great Challenge

Katharine first reached out to me in 2018 to ask whether I could repair the quilt made by her husband’s great-grandma. She sent me some pictures and in retrospect, I now question whether I really looked at the photos carefully because in my mind when I accepted the project, I thought it would take me an hour or two to fix a few torn areas. But this morning, when I went back and looked at the photos that she originally emailed me, I wonder what I was thinking when I said yes! Maybe it was the sleep deprivation of having an infant and toddler in the house that clouded my thinking…

Here are the “before” photos as emailed to me by Katharine C.:

One of the things I certainly did not notice when looking at the photos was that nearly all of the tied knots that John’s Great-Grandma had placed to hold the layers together were gone. Only a few remained.

But apparently, I felt ready for the challenge and accepted the project. Because I could only work on it while having it spread out on the floor, it became a project that I had to work on when the girls were sleeping. The first time, I worked on it, it took me an hour to get just one small part repaired. Sitting on the floor and bending over to sew fabric that was literally disintegrating wasn’t working well. I put the project aside, telling John and Katharine that I didn’t know when I would finish it—that it was a project that first of all needed to wait until the girls were a little older because I needed projects that were easier to work in in small increments of time without taking up so much space.

Many months passed, and then John and Katharine reached out to me with the idea of turning the quilt into a king-size quilt that they could use on their bed. I instantly felt relieved. I knew that if I could take the layers apart and make the repairs by machine that it would be a much better repair job. So we worked out the details of fabric needed, and she ordered fabrics for the backing, batting, and binding and had them shipped directly to me.

I proceeded to take the layers apart. I discovered lots of dust and caked lint between the layers so I purchased a solution designed to remove stains from old fabric, using the product shown in the Amazon (affiliate) link. And putting the quilt top into the bathtub, I gently soaked and washed it.

The washing did help to brighten the colors and remove some of the stains, but some of them were too far set (maybe because I attempted to soak it in a vinegar solution first to set the colors). Anyway, after washing it several times in the solution and allowing it to air dry and get some sunlight on the clothesline outdoors at the house we were temporarily renting, it began to smell fresher and looked better.

Because so many of the fabrics were falling apart, I decided to stabilize it by putting it on an old bedsheet that my sister-in-law provided. I then began repairing the many, many holes that I found. In addition to the ones obvious in the photo above, there were many small holes as shown below.

When I started the mending, I was cutting a patch and sewing it over each hole, but I quickly realized that eventually the entire quilt would be covered in tiny patches and each patch took incredibly much time to measure cut, press, and sew. The first time I started working on it, I spent several hours of uninterrupted time and got only a tiny portion of the quilt repaired. I reached out to John and Katharine to ask what they wanted me to do. Because John wanted as much as possible of his great-grandma’s original work to show through, we decided that I would mend the smaller holes with visible mending.

And the pictures below show the patching method. As you can see some of the areas where the fabric had completely disintegrated had to be completely replaced, but other areas were smaller and covered with smaller patches. The quilt is now covered with a combination of the visible mending and patching.

I took me a LONG time to complete this project. I stopped tracking my time when I had reached 40 hours—and I have put in many, many, many hours since then. I had some help along the way…

Photo credit: Ellie, who was 4 years old at the time.

…but mostly it was a project that I needed to work on when Ryan was able to take care of the girls and the dog since it required so much focus and space—especially when I had to work on it as it was spread out on the floor. Also, during the time period that I was working on it, we were selling a house, renting a house that was on the market that needed to be shown frequently, buying a house and moving twice! Last year was CRAZY! But I worked on it when I could, and John and Katharine were graciously patient.

I finally started knotting it on President’s Day when Ryan gave me a portion of the day to work on it. Even though I stayed up really late to work on it, I wasn’t able to get it finished that day. So I kept the dog sequestered in the basement study, and told the girls to stay off of of the quilt and worked on it well into the next day. Finally, the layers were finally tied together.

And this week, I cut the binding and finished it completely! Again, I stayed up much later than normal because I was determined to get it finished. I typically hand-sew the binding onto my quilts, but because of the sheer size and bulk of the quilt and my desire to get it finished this week, I decided to sew it on by machine. I found this decorative stitch that resembles an old-fashioned blanket stitch and used it to stitch the binding. In this photo, you can also see the backing that was specifically chosen because of the tartan plaid, which has significance to the owner of the quilt.

It feels so good to have this project finished, and I hope that the quilt will bring John and Katharine a lifetime of warmth and comfort and bring back happy memories of the quilt’s maker.

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