Damaged Butterflies: A Quilt Repair

In 2016, I used some of my Rainbow Scrap Challenge butterfly blocks to make a baby quilt for a close friend's second child.    I called it Bright Butterflies, and it's young owner is known as Lady Bug.

Bright Butterflies

Early in the summer, I got a call from Lady Bug's mom, Kate. They had just returned from a week-long vacation and it seemed their dog missed his family and did some damage to a few textiles in the house, including Bright Butterflies.

When I finally got to see it in person, it actually wasn't as bad as I expected. The chewed areas were all toward the edges.

Kate was hoping I could just trim away the chewed parts and re-bind it.  And I could have, but it would have looked weird.  I told her a lot depended on how much she cared about *this* quilt, and if it needed to stay intact. We discussed various salvaging options, and ultimately I convinced her that I could turn the six unharmed butterflies into smaller objects and I would happily make a new quilt for Lady Bug. 

I wanted to do a series of doll quilts but Kate didn't think Lady Bug needed more than one doll quilt.  So two butterflies became a doll quilt.

I mentioned in the original Bright Butterflies post that Kate loves scrap quilts and she & I have traded scraps many times over the years.  I used several fabrics that came form her in the scrappy butterflies, including scraps from a quilt her grandmother made without realizing that's where the scraps came from!  It was especially important that the aqua butterfly be saved, since that's where the grandmother's scraps were.  Fortunately, that was not an area that got chewed.  I turned the aqua and dark purple butterflies into a wall hanging with a hanging sleeve, per request.  And the original label was not damaged!  I was able to unpick the stitches and move it to the back of the wall hanging (no photo of that part).

That left two more butterflies, and Kate suggested a small pillow.  She said Lady Bug liked things like that.  Perfect!  Pink butterfly on one side, yellow on the other.

My son loved the pillow and now wants me to make him one.  I don't have any more salvaged butterflies, but I do have a butterfly die for my accuquilt!  It will make a great rainy day project with him some time this fall.

I finished these projects over the 4th of July weekend but only recently got them photographed and returned to Lady Bug.  I completed her replacement quilt yesterday and will work on getting that photographed, written up, and gifted soon.  I'm glad that the damage wasn't extensive and that Lady Bug will still get to use her baby quilt, even if it's now in different forms. 

Quilt Repair and Throwback Thursday

My dad alternates two different quilts on his bed.  One is the Carolina Dancing quilt I made a few years ago from Carole's Scrap Dance Tango quilt along.  The other was made at an unknown date by his mother, my grandmother Mildred, now deceased.

When I stayed with Dad for 2 weeks in February, my quilt was on the bed but he got down Grandmother's quilt at one point to show me a few areas that needed mending.  I was able to fix the areas without problem, but I noticed that the binding was in really bad shape and told him I thought it needed to be replaced.

fraying binding

Then came the fun part (sarcasm)--ripping out the original binding.  I was originally considering just cutting off the original binding and adding the new one, but Carole of From My Carolina Home, who does some amazing painstaking quilt repairs, convinced me that I was better off ripping it out.

pile of binding once it was all removed

It took multiple movies and questionable TV on Netflix to get remove the binding.  You can see how torn it was in parts.

In some areas, you could see how faded the fabrics had gotten by contrast with the fabric hidden away in the binding.

Can you see the difference in the faded and none-faded fabrics?

We agreed that my sister-in-law Heather, who is an interior designer and has the best color sense of all of us, pick out a solid binding.  I told her my preferred brand of solids and let her loose.  I had been thinking a dark yellow, something dark enough that it was clear we didn't try to match the original, but still with the same feel.  Heather came back with two choices--Kona Regatta (a medium-to-dark blue) or Kona Curry, a dark yellow.  I ordered both before my dad arrived in North Carolina for his annual visit.  He drives across country every year, so he was able to bring the full-sized quilt with him.  Heather's first choice was the blue but dad and I both liked the yellow better, so we used Kona Curry.

I just barely finished it before Dad left to drive back to Oregon.  He wasn't in a hurry to take it with him, but I didn't want to store it for a year! We took photos in the front yard in a hurry before heading to breakfast at Happy's Grill, where we took pictures of the finished tea cozy. 

So what's with the Throwback Thursday reference in the title?  I found a picture of me as a baby with this same quilt as the backdrop!!!  This is circa 1978:

I was thrilled to be able to repair a quilt of my grandmother's, especially knowing it was made before I was born.  With a new binding, it should have a good bit of use out of it.  I can only guess that Grandma had the same philosophy of quilts that I do--they are meant to be used!