I’m slow. Summer is a bad time to make a quilt. There are lots of distractions… Okay there are LOTS OF EXCUSES! I’m thinking my Grandma could’ve had this quilt repaired in a day, maybe two if there was other stuff going on. And here I am wrapping up week two and I’ve not made much of a showing on it.

After I decided I’d cover one side with a quilt top I already had on hand, I tried to choose the best side for patching – no sense in applying more patches than necessary, right? I stitched on about 4 patches, using just a running stitch. I plan to go back and add an applique stitch to secure those corners. However, I’m trying not to wrestle it around more than necessary so after the patches were securely in place I’ve basted the new quilt top on.

Then there’s the question of quilting. Of course I need to do this by hand – I may be handling it very delicately but I couldn’t expect a machine quilter to do the same, and anyway I don’t know that this old fabric would survive the whole process. I have another old quilt that has been re-covered and that one was tack-quilted. I’m afraid to try that in this case because there are a number of actual holes and I’m pretty sure I need to secure both the fabric and the new batting that I’m adding.

Speaking of batting, I’ve added batting under each of the patches and I have it basted in at the binding edge. The original batting had really balled-up between the quilting and when the fabric wore through it was coming out like stuffing. I’ve pulled out as much of the old batting as I could without causing further damage and I’m trying to replace that padding.

I have basted half of the quilt and have the other half carefully rolled and clamped. I’ve quilted a could of lines, just moving along the green strips that join the patch strips. We’ll see where I get to next week!