Andrew's Quilt Project

 Today's project is brought to you by the willing hands of my son and I. It was born of necessity and was quickly achieved as all things came together smoothly. Well almost all things. My poor old Kenmore sewing machine being of the ripe old age of 45 years, just didn't like the layers and so fussed and grunted and sometimes froze up and refused to budge. However we being of stern stuff, took him apart, oiled his little gears, changed to a larger needle and soon he was purring away like new, well mostly. He still complained, but we persevered. 

The first thing we decided on this quilt project is that we would use the things we already had and try not to spend a dime on the making off  it. We knew we wanted the quilt top to be a lovely piece of printed fleece Andrew was already using for his bed. The problem was the fleece was just too thin and didn't provide adequate warmth against our cold winter weather. Well it just so happened that I had been toting around for years, the poor innards of an old deceased silk quilt. (aka the batting) This silk quilt had been a lovely one, lightweight and warm, but silk does not hold up well to certain conditions and inside of ten years it was a torn tattered mess. I removed the silk and disposed of it, as it wasn't even fit for scraps, but just couldn't bring myself to throw away the batting. It was king sized so was plenty big for our purposes. 

The next question, was what to do for a backing? Back into the cupboards we went. This time the sheets cupboard. We were in luck, for we found upon the shelf a good quality flat sheet whose mate had also perished many years before. It's elastic having failed and holes worn through it, it had gone long ago to the rag bag. But the flat sheet was in good nick so we quickly grabbed it and sandwiched the three together. Here are a few pictures of our project. I hope you enjoy them.

We were already pretty deep into this project before I thought of getting some pictures. The cold weather being the reason for the urgent need, we were making all haste to achieve our goal. It took us four days of hard work, but was fun too.

Here you can see the layers of the quilt, and how we were doing the edges. We were so glad that two of my large folding craft tables would fit in the living room with just enough added space to walk around the tables and allow us to work from every angle.

I should have placed these cotton crewel threads on a better surface so you could see all of their colors. This is what we decided to use as tie tacking threads. Two threads cut at 8 inches was what we came up with for the perfect tying length. Since we decided to use multiple colors it created a problem. Much more work, as each set of threads would have to be cut and tied one at a time. Yes and each new color re-threaded into the needle. It didn't occur to my sad brain, until my sister, who is an experienced quilter, pointed out to me the obvious. I could have done each color in long lengths, cutting to length as I went.  This would have been excellent to do, but you see the crewel threads were something I had picked up at an antique store years ago. I only had a few skeins, and I didn't know if I would have enough thread for the whole quilt?! Thus we hit upon the idea of using multiple colors, and hiding them in the foliage of the pattern. The other problem was, we had to do the quilt just laid out on the top of the tables. We did not have a quilt frame, at least not one that will fit in the house. Andrew would help pull the threads through the bulk, then as I was tying off he would go to the other end of the quilt and pull it tight so there weren't any puckers. It was tough going and we had the added joy of running into the tack spots from the old batting. Those old nub's around the old holes would come to be our nemesis.

Did I mention, the other reason I didn't thread up all the colors in long threads, and do it all at once? I am not a quilter. So I am not set up for doing large quilts of any kind. In going through my needles I found to my chagrin that I had but one needle that would do the job. So pre-threading was out and re-threading became my chore! It was a team effort I can tell you, and for the most part done with good cheer. I kept stabbing my fingers with the pins however, and Andrew I'm sure got tired of fetching the rubbing alcohol. I heard more than one sigh of disgust before it was all through, and it wasn't always Andrew. I'm so glad I had all those matching crewel thread colors. They blended so well you can barely see them on the finished quilt. We had thought to use a blue colored yarn at first for all of the tie downs, but the only blue colored yarn was slubby and didn't look good, so we hit upon the crewel thread and it worked perfectly.

After what seemed like days, and actually was, we got the thing tacked together. We had pre-pinned a random pattern of tacking spots with my long sewing pins. It really helped to keep things in place so I didn't have to baste everything, which was an option I really didn't want to take. The first stages went fairly smoothly, tho I thought I would have crossed eyes for good from all of the needle threading. The edge pinning went super slick, and luckily the batting and old sheet were far larger than the fleece top, as we had decided the whole quilt needed to be bigger. I just cut the batting to the size we wanted and folded the old sheet over the edges leaving a one inch border on the fleece top. It made for very nice trimming.

We didn't need the quilt very much longer, but we did need it far wider. Thankfully the sheet was a queen size and our quilt was a full size, so there was plenty of room to maneuver. We added four inches to each side and two inches to the top and bottom. I sewed the sides up first and things were going along smoothly, until old Kenny hit those old nubs. He didn't like the bulky layers in the first place, so began to grumble. Then he hit a few nubs and got down right cranky. I listened to his growl and hoped he would keep going, but right towards the end of one long run, he just froze up and refused to move another inch. I was in panic mode, but Andrew, always the calm one, told me to take the quilt off and we would take old Kenny completely apart and get to the bottom of things. It was soon found that his bobbin compartment had filled up with all kinds of lint from the fleece and old batting. We removed his bobbin and cleaned and oiled him, put in a new heavier needle, and he was soon up and running again, tho still complaining about the nubs. Those old bumps where the quilt had been tied before were very problematic. I had gone over the batting and tried to smooth them out before reusing it, but the unevenness was still something my machine hated.

Here is the front and back of the our simple finished quilt, where it resides in all its light weight yet warming comfort on Andrew's bed. We got it done just in time for the weather to warm up to 60 degree's. How's that for timing?! We know, tho it may be warm this week, the winter is far from over, so the cold will come again. Andrew meanwhile has been snugger than a bug in a rug, so all the effort was worth it. True to our plan we didn't go out and buy anything, not even the thread in the sewing machine. Everything was already in our stash ready to be renovated into something new. That old sheet turned out to be just perfect and the old batting too.

This is all that was left of the old batting, and I already have an idea for using it for another project or two. The only scraps left of the old sheet were where I cut out bulk at the corners. The rest was folded under into the hem. This was the first quilt my son and I have made together and it went really well. We both enjoyed it, and especially the final result. I encourage everyone to have a look-see through their stashes. You never know what glorious project may come of it?! Happy stitching everyone and stay warm!