You'd think after raising 2 daughters on my own, I would have learned my lesson! My daughter dropped Alex off early Sunday morning, and silly me, stayed up way too late the night before so I laid down on the couch while Alex ate breakfast and promptly dozed off. I'm a fairly light sleeper so I woke up when I heard him moving around, only to discover this!
He was obviously pretty quiet for awhile!
His scissoring skills are coming along - he tried to cut out one of the circles! It's funny how you gain patience as you age. I didn't mad, but I did express my disappointment to him and he felt pretty bad. He doesn't normally get into things, and it was the first time I've had to talk to him about doing something he shouldn't have done. Not bad for almost being 4 and spending so much time at my home. And I learned my lesson (again, after 25 years).
I took a day to think about how I was going to handle it - did I want to make a new block? Of course, he had done this on one of the more detailed blocks.
Ultimately, I decide to just repair the damage as I am not about perfection, but love family history and like the idea of having a story to go with the quilt.
Turns out I didn't have enough fabric to make a new block anyway, but I did have a piece large enough to piece in a new strip.
First, I heated up the applique with the iron and gently peeled back the top row. I had to pull the green leaf off as it had a small cut in it, and cut out a new one.
The background fabric had an off-set stripe pattern, which I was able to match up perfectly.
I sewed the long edge first with a 1/4" seam on the new piece, and trimmed off the old after sewing it, leaving a good size seam allowance on the short side.
I then measured and folded over the seam allowance on the short side, and after pressing, used it as a guide for sewing it.
I was left with one small odd-shaped section that butted up to the appliqued ribbon. I pressed it in the proper place and hand-stitched it down.
Done! And stripes matched perfectly. If it wasn't for the seam allowance, you wouldn't even know it was there and I didn't have to cut out all those little flower pieces again. And, my quilt has a story!
I'm way more patient with my grandsons when they do things like this then I ever was when my children were little. You did a nice job piecing it back together and it looks beautiful, plus it has a great story. :O)
ReplyDeleteAnd, a sweet story, too. Congratulations on the story, and the repair and the memory. Lane
ReplyDeleteNothing like a story of a loved grandson to go along with a beautiful quilt! I think you'll be glad in more ways than one that you didn't do another block ~
ReplyDelete:-}pokey
I love that you are keeping the block with just a little repair. I guess he needs a project of his own. You could teach him to embroider. I was about that age when my grandmother taught me. So glad this story had a happy ending!
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