I've spent several days over the past couple of weeks refurbishing a quilt that I had made for our daughter when she was a little girl. I didn't think about putting a label on it back then, but I made it sometime in the 1980s. She had a similar baby quilt that a friend had made back in 1978, which my daughter loved until it literally wore out. She wanted another like it when she was older, so I made a similar one, only larger so she could use it on her bed. Her baby quilt had a green ruffle, but when I made the larger one, I used yellow and white eyelet to match her bedroom. The quilt is twin size with 8-inch gingham blocks, cotton eyelet and gingham ruffle. I had originally just tacked it with embroidery thread at the corners of the blocks, but after all the years, the thread had pulled holes in some of the blocks, and I needed to replace a few. I didn't know much about fabric quality back in the day, so the quality of my fabric choice wasn't what I'd use now. I found a few colors in a couple of quilt shops, but that fabric quality didn't blend very well with what I had originally used. I did find some similar quality at JoAnn's and Walmart, though, and it's difficult to tell the old blocks from the new ones.
I pulled all of the embroidery thread tacking out and took the quilt layers apart. The batting was in need of replacement, so to make the quilt lightweight since we now live in the south, I used flannel as the batting in refurbishing. I left the eyelet and ruffle attached to three sides of the quilt top, and sewed the layers together as if it were a big pillowcase. I kept the original gingham backing and quilted in the ditch so there wouldn't be as much pulling on the corners of the blocks.
The original quilt had the eyelet and ruffling all around, but I removed it from the top edge and replaced it with binding made from the new gingham fabric. I decided to add a little of Nana's personal touch there and do a little hand quilting to cuddle my little granddaughter's neck as she lies beneath it. :-) I've put it on the bed that she sleeps in whenever she's visiting.
We'll get to see our sweet Anna again in a couple of months, and I think she'll like the new-to-her quilt. :-) (Love your smile, Sweetie!)
