Finishing a Quilt

Years ago, when my husband graduated from college, his mother made him a quilt.  Not just any quilt, this was made from 5" squares cut from his old pairs of blue jeans. Tied with blue yarn, and lined on the back with flannel, this toasty warm quilt has always been our favorite.  This was the only quilt he took to college with him, and once we were married, it has always been on our bed. 

Alas, 30 years has taken it's toll on the quilt.  The back tore, and the batting began to fall out.  The back tore some more, and more lining fell out.  Last year, I finally bit the bullet and tore off the remains of the batting and backing.  I picked up a new backing - in the form of a flat sheet at Target, and more batting.

I spent a quick hour on the floor of the church, pinning the layers of the quilt together. 

And now, the time consuming part.  Tying a quilt goes faster than hand quilting, but it's still a time consuming proposition.  The yarn has to be cut, and each tie needs to be hand tied.  I am putting the new ties in the same spots that my Mother in Law had placed them.  Originally, I was attempting to tie the knots in the same direction, but I gave that up as a lost cause after 50 knots.  That was just too much detail work for me.

I began working on tying the quilt before Christmas, but I stopped about a week before and put it away for a while.  I pulled it back out again last night and started on it again.  I'm about a quarter of the way through re-tying it now. I'd like to think that I'll have this finished before the end of January so that I can start on daughter's quilt while it's still cold out and I don't mind having a ton of fabric on my lap!

Pre-Cut yarn, the needle and the quilt.

Getting ready to run the needle into the middle of the square.

One more knot!

Another one done - so much more to go!

Quilt Repair

My mother in law made this quilt for my husband when he graduated from high school.  It's a wonderfully warm and heavy quilt, made with pieces of old, worn out, blue jeans.  She cut 5 inch squares of denim, sewed them together, and then tied the quilt together with a skein of blue yarn that she picked up from K-Mart.  For years, this has been one of our favorite quilts!  It's really warm, and durable, and full of warm memories.

30 something years later, this poor quilt was showing the ravages of age.  The backing had been torn to shreds, and the batting had fallen out.  We haven't used it in a couple of years.  I finally have the time, so I'm working on refinishing the quilt.  I've pulled off the backing and the batting.  I had to cut off all of the blue ties.  Ye Gods, that was a more involved task than I thought it was going to be!  

After some serious consideration, we picked up a high quality black sheet from Target's Threshold collection, and I spent Tuesday afternoon pinning the quilt back together.  I had a large expanse of clean floor that I borrowed from my church.  I taped down the sheet, then I taped down the batting on top of the sheet, and then I placed the denim top on top of the sandwich.   I used basting pins to pin the layers together.  30 minutes after I started, I had a pinned quilt, ready to be pulled together!

I've been tying the layers as my mother in law did before me.  I realize now why she didn't want to help me fix the quilt.  Getting that needle through the layers of denim is a tough proposition!  I've been debating using pliers to pull the needle through! It's going to take me a while to get this thing tied together!

Once I take care of that, I have to figure out how to finish the edges.  This is where the only wear and tear on the denim can be seen.  The top and bottom edges had been turned in and sewed together.  If you look closely at the edge, you can see that the denim has torn and worn right along the edges.  So, while I tie the quilt together, I'm going to be contemplating how to finish off the edges of the quilt so that the whole thing will last another 30 years.  Your suggestions on binding the edges are more than welcome!  I certainly have no idea what I'm doing!