Once upon a time, actually probably about 18 months ago, Lauri, my daughter-in-law, asked me to bring her childhood quilt back to life.  I didn’t hesitate to say “yes”.

I’ve never “restored” a quilt.  And after I got it home and took a good look at it I thought it might be impossible to restore.  I might even end up destroying it.

Most of the fabric looks like it’s from the 70s—some of it actually looked familiar from way back when I used to sew my own clothes—in the 70s.

The batting had mostly disintegrated and the yellow backing was attached here and there. The blanket was tied rather than quilted and those ties had held on strong!

First step.

Get the ripper out.  Off goes the batting and backing.

Into the washer.

Next.

Inspect each and every block.  So many were bad—65 in all!

I just decided to pull every row apart and replace damaged blocks as I went.  I used knits that I had in my home plus donated fabric from the learning center.

And then I lost momentum (and interest) and put the quilt pieces into a tote and hid it in a closet.  Until I started cleaning my sewing room and decided it was time to finish all my UFOs.

So back at it.  Ripping.  Stitching (restitching every seam even with the blocks that were good.)

Then I took a good look at it and realized that I had completely lost the pattern that the original quilt had.  I said to myself, I gotta rip this apart and start over.  And then really really examined it and realized that there was no way I would ever get that pattern back.  Too many blocks that had been replaced.

That’s when I thought, I’ve ruined it.  I should just quit.  But I didn’t.  I went forward.  And finished it.

And it turned out REALLY COOL!

Especially when I put the backing on it.  And finished it with these little “kisses”

When I brought it downstairs, Terry even said, wow, that looks great!

Yeah!

So I’m not calling it the “Leisure Suit Larry” quilt anymore.

It’s the “well-loved quilt”.

Happy ending.