fixing the holes

once in a while i will get a crazy idea born out of some twisted idea of necessity. part of this is a fixation with repairing much loved things. a good long time ago, i received a vintage faux fur coat as a gift. it became my primary winter coat. and one day there was a hole in the lining. i patched that hole with a crazy quilt fan block i pieced together from some random scraps. the outside of the coat was fine, but the lining was disintegrating. over the next couple of years as the lining continued to fall apart, i continued to patch up the holes. finally, the coat itself started to fall apart. it had its last hurrah during last summer's trip to the desert.

i acquired a new vintage coat last year. it is a lovely 1970's leather coat with powder grey shearling trim that my friend chris helped me buy from a guy in a bar who looks exactly like prince. it is a truly lovely coat, and the lining was intact. was. i pulled my coat out of the closet and discovered a HOLE in the lining. being that the saddest part of letting my old coat go was all of the time i spent adding crazy quilt patchwork to the lining. so i chopped it out.



an i spent a good part of today sewing and embroidering the old patches over the holes.



so begins my slippery slope. maybe someday someone will manufacture a lining that won't disintegrate, but that would be too easy.

fixing an old friend

many years ago i discovered quilting. i think that if i could make my living this way, i would be a quilter. it is a secret madness, quilting. the constant eye out and collecting of calico (the printed cotton fabric used for traditional quilting) with every trip to the fabric store, and the hoarding of scraps of fabric in plastic bins. i have several unfinished quilts that i work on every now and then resting in a neatly folded pile at the foot of my bed.

about 10 years ago i made the quilt that covers my bed. it is made out of 1930's reproduction prints in bubblegum colours. a very simple design of plain 5" squares. this quilt has seen a lot. it has moved with me through several different houses, it has come camping with me, housesitting with me, it has a little of piper's blood on it from when she had her dreadful tail accident. in short it has been the security blanket of my adult life. it even came with me on my foray into the desert this past summer. it has been a symbol of comfort and home to me over the years.

about two years ago, it started to get holes. just little tiny wear holes in the top, and the binding was worn through at the edges. i decided that it was worth fixing. it all started with 7 red hearts that i sewed over the worn holes, and a binding repair. now it has graduated to 200+ hearts and counting. i sew on new hearts as needed. pretty soon it will be all hearts.