Wednesday, November 16, 2011

A Quilt Story to Remember

Here's an amazing story about a quilt.
I made this quilt for my brother-in-law and his family for Christmas some years ago.
Their kids were playing with a reading lamp near the bed and knocked it over.
 Some time later, as they were getting ready to leave the house for the day, my sister-in-law realized she forgot something and ran into the bedroom, only to find the quilt smoldering and smoking.
 She soaked the quilt in the sink and saved her home just in time.
Luckily, she was inspired to run back inside the bedroom.
 Luckily the quilt was folded over and the light bulb only burned through the quilt not harming the mattress.
 Luckily it was only burned on the very corner and a simple fix.
 Luckily I had exactly enough scrap of that stripe fabric left to rebuild the border.  Stripes - especially uneven stripe like those - are so forgiving!  You can't even tell where I pieced in the new fabric...
...Unless you look at the back ... I used what I had on hand.  A slightly different neutral muslin.
Oh, well.  It will serve as a reminder scar, I guess.
 All in all, the quilt was saved and, more important, their home is saved too.

 It's still a beautiful quilt with many more years of use in it.
I finished it in time for my sister-in-law's birthday, so as a gift to them, I appliqued a fourth little cub because #4 is coming this winter.  Cute, huh!