Friday, May 14, 2010

Death of a UFO, or 20 years of guilt











20 years ago, my mother and I machine pieced together a queen sized quilt in a weekend.  She and Dad were visiting us in TN (we were home for a year furlough after being gone for 4 years overseas).  I worked on it faithfully for a number of years, until one day when I put it away,  I left some tape on it.  I had no idea that the tape would stain the fabric.










When I next pulled it out of the bag, of course I was dismayed at the stains.  2 blocks were basically ruined!  So back in the bag it went for many years.  Guilt, guilt, guilt!  It nagged at me thru the years, but I didn't know how to fix it.  So this week I finally got out the quilting frame, and I remembered how to put it together, and once again pulled out the quilt.  I had decided to put the quilt on the frame and carefully cut out the bad pieces and make new ones to replace them.







This is what I found.  This picture is after I have washed it a couple of times. There are huge stains of some sort (urine?) all over the quilt!  The backing, of course is ruined as is the batting.  Of the 24 blocks, only 11 remain untarnished, most of the outer sashing is ok too.  I have been debating what to do.  Do I just toss the whole thing?   Do I take it apart and save the good squares?

I may save the good parts, and see if I have different colors of fabric, and remake it, maybe not  queen size, but full.  I am still not sure, but there is a lot of emotion in there.  Mom and Dad are tied up in there with being in the US after so many years abroad.  Hard to just let it all go.





                                                                                                            I finished my first inkle band.  The first 6 inches are just a little wider than the rest.  I really enjoyed doing this project, so I decided to try something a little more difficult.  I saw a video on youtube about the pick up method of "inkling".  It was produced by www.norsegirl.com . So I went to her website and was able to pick up a ton of info there.







This is a Celtic Knot pattern that she has on her website and on the youtube video.  It is going really well, it is only a 6 row repeat, so not too complicated.  The hardest part about this is the set up.  You use triple strands as your pattern thread, and you have 2 tabby threads between the pattern threads.  Here I am using 8/4 cotton warp, since I have about a ton of that laying around the studio.

The Tuesday weavers are going to have a get together at Lou Ann's house when she opens her pool.  We have enough Inkle looms at the center to do a class on "inkling".  Maybe we could have some doing the first band I did and the more adventuresome could tackle this one.

Wally is here at my feet, getting bigger by the moment,  I will try to get a picture of him for next weeks blog.  DH is out of town for 10 days, I am glad I have Wally to keep me company.

Happy Weaving, Tina

6 comments:

LA said...

I LOVE that Celtic knot pattern!!!! I'm already excited about our "weekend" of weaving. We need to decide all the projects we want to tackle. This will be so much fun! As for the quilt...we need to get Maggie's input. She managed a quilt shop for many years, and I'm sure she has some great advice.

Bonnie said...

Love that celtic knot pattern. Maybe I could try that next. I may have to exchange inkle loom. I am having some trouble.
Decisions, decisions about the quilt. I think you would be sorry if you tossed it. Your idea of replacement of the pieces would be best but lots of work. Then in time a beautiful, meaningful quilt.

Anonymous said...

Hi - what a beautiful quilt that has some really neat memories. Have you tried Red-B-Gone to remove the stains? Its given out by our water department here in Athens, GA when too much red clay gets in the waterlines and stains the laundry, etc. I've had success with it with coke and tea stains, as well as some what-in-the-world-is-that stains. Beware, it will take out the red, whether its the dye in the fabric or just a stain. Good luck - Cynthia (Carl's cousin's daughter)

Anonymous said...

Weekend of weaving? Hmmm, maybe I should spend more time at the center.

Tina, the quilt is so pretty! Surely there is something you can use to get the stains out.

Your weaving is beautiful! I love the Celtic knot.

Linda

Anonymous said...

Wow!!! Your Celtic knot pattern is just beautiful.

Sharen

Maggie said...

Well, I actually managed an outdoors store for a long time, but I worked in a quilt shop for about a year! And I quilted for 25 years before I got my first loom. What about tea dying? Can you get some similar fabric and do a test batch? The blue and white could be pretty tea-dyed, I think. It usually seems to me that the harder you work on getting a stain like that out, the more you damage the surrounding fabric.