Saturday, December 31, 2016

Happy New Year's Eve! Quilting As Usual!

Here is how it is.  I finished the Dr. Who Quilt last minute at the end of November and got it in the mail to S. Korea.  Number 1 Daughter received it and loves it!  I have not had a chance to post photos of several things I have completed.  I finished putting the binding on the Jelly Roll Race Quilt, and of course, assisted Kirsten with finishing up one of her quilts.  But these last three weeks, I have been tackling a mending/restoration job that I have been holding on to for over two years.  I decided to stop procrastinating and get it done!  A co-worker and his wife were dog-sitting their grown son's big puppy dog, who had to have a medical procedure.  The wife felt sorry for big puppy and brought out an old baby quilt she had made many years before.  Big puppy ripped a big hole in this quilt.  The wife was sorry she had put the quilt down and thought it unrepairable.  She was distressed and threw it in the trash.  Thoughtful husband secretly rescued it from the trash and brought it to work and showed me the situation.  I told him I could fix it and brought it home.  Once I brought it out of my cupboard, I thought, "I can have this fixed up in a week!"   Boy, was I wrong!  I zig-zagged around the edges of the embroidered patch I had made over two years ago, and threw that in the wash.  It needed softened up.  I snipped all the yarns that held this 'tied' quilt together.  This is also a 'turned' quilt. I unstitched part of the bottom and turned it inside out.  I mended two tears, two seams coming apart, and replaced the ripped up block with the embroidered block.  Then I assessed the batting, which was torn up pretty big in the one area and coming apart in two other areas.  I decided to replace the batting.  The amazing part is: When I went to that J store and got batting, I found baby yarn exactly the same shade of washed-out yellow as on this quilt!  I came home and cut the batting out, and I was just going to sew inside the existing seam lines to connect the new batting when I discovered the back of the quilt was really a lot bigger than the top of the quilt.  I took the back apart from the front.  I was trying to determine how to tack the batting to the back, to make things easier when turning the quilt the right side out again.  My wonderful friend, T, suggested that spray basting stuff.  What a great idea!  When she arrived with her can of spray basting, the next day, I had just laid the back out on my table, so we laid out the batting on top of it.  She shook up the spray basting and then we pulled back the batting about half way, so she could spray. She sprayed one half of the quilt backing, when I suddenly realized it was not the inside being sprayed, but the outside!  I snatched that back up and ran into the laundry room and rinsed it in the deep sink, then put it in the wash to wash that stuff out.  No way does that stuff wash out!  I washed it and tried to steam dry it with my iron, washed it again, washed it again, dried it, then used a lint removal roller on it.  It was still sticky. 
So, T, ripped out the seam holding the two pieces of the back together.  I resewed them, so the seam allowances were on the side with the sticky stuff.  Now the inside of the back of the quilt is the outside of the back of the quilt.  A very clean quilt back it is indeed!  Tonight, I got the batting, backing, and front all sewed together.  I got it turned right side out. I hand stitched the opening closed.  I found my big-eyed needle and threaded it with pale yellow thread and got about half of the blocks tied. I am a happy girl.  I took a break.  My husband and I made some pistachio pudding, then took photos of the Jelly Roll Race Quilt.  It is beautiful!  So, here is a photo of the Jelly Roll Race Quilt!  I love the way these crazy bright colors work together and the stitching is a fabulous design decided on and quilted by Sid Mooney. 

It is a good sized quilt; 60" X 77"


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