Norman Strikes Again!

That Norman! The chocolate lab who tore apart a vintage Grandmother’s Flower Garden quilt in April (see The Dog Ate My Quilt) has developed a taste for old quilts. This month, he chewed the corner off a gorgeous vintage Bowtie quilt. Not as extensive as April’s damage, but Norman’s owner is starting to think I’m paying him in Milk Bones to tear up her quilts.

I had to replace half the bowtie, batting, backing and binding. I could not locate a green striped fabric that came anywhere near what the original bowtie looked like, so Norman’s “mom” decided to go with contrast and picked out a polka dot.

I noticed there was another quilt in the bag, and it was the Grandmother’s Flower Garden quilt I fixed in April. Oh no! Immediately, I did the mature, professional thing and jumped to conclusions: she hated my work and was throwing it back in my face. Can you believe I was wrong? The worst worn flower in the garden had batting falling out around what was left of the fabric. While the owner didn’t want me to make a completely new flower (too expensive), she did ask if I could “put a patch over it” to keep the batting where it belonged. Well sure, I can do anything. Hahaha. I mean, how hard can it be to make a one piece patch, sorta hexagonally shaped semi circle, complete with seam allowances? Pretty darn difficult, that’s how hard! The patch and I had a few differences at first, but after I threatened it with the fireplace, things fell into place.

Everybody is happy for now, but I sense Norman is plotting his next “challenge”.

UPDATE: This blog won American Quilter's Society Blog Of The Week on June 4, 2010.  Thank you Norman!  Your Milk Bones are in the mail!

The Dog Ate My Quilt

Destroyin’ Norman, the Labrador Retriever is one lucky dog. When his owner brought me the product of his labor (1st photo), I wasn’t sure I could put Humpty Dumpty together again. The Grandmother’s Flower Garden quilt was over 70 years old and fragile. Now a dog had taken a big bite out of it. How is one supposed to age gracefully with a chunk missing?


The first thing I did was look at it for a day, hoping some magic power would come through my eyeballs and fix it. When that didn’t work, I got busy. One of the half flowers at the border needed replacing as did a 2 foot section of the border itself. The batting, back and binding for the section also had to be replaced (next 3 pictures). Then the new section would have to be hand quilted, matching the stitches of the original quilter (“Good luck with that,” Norman chuckled). Two big challenges were finding fabric that matched the old border fabric, and trying to attach the new section to old fragile material. Finding the fabric was easier than I thought it would be; thank goodness Depression era colors are popular right now. Getting everyone to play together nicely was another matter.

The old border fabric and the background hexagons are very delicate, and fell apart in places when machine sewing was attempted. After more than a few Diva Moments (“This looks like trash, and trash is not allowed to exist in my presence!”), trying the Magic Eyeball trick again, and walking away a couple of times to mutter to myself, everything finally came together and stayed together. I wondered if there was a place I could take the quilt to have all the negative energy removed, but decided a good airing would do just as well.

Norman is out of the dog house for now...