And Now... Time for a "First"..

My second quilt project was a queen-sized bedspread - Ohio star. Here's a photo:



It's been on our bed ever since. I've never gotten tired of it.

Back in March we decided to have the master bathroom renovated. It was a project we'd talked about for the 6 years we've been here - but we never actually got around to doing it. Procrastination was finally swept aside, however, and a local tradesman was hired to upgrade it for us.

Well, that's all grand, but why am I mentioning the quilt?

The bathroom, you see, is just beyond the red curtain shown in the photo above. The "pocket door" was broken before we bought the house - and wouldn't close properly, hence the need to hang a curtain there (it's a workable substitute). The tradesman noted this and said he would drape sheeting over the door to prevent dust from the job getting into the room.

Stupid me - I trusted him.

I stayed well out of the way on day one of the renovation (which was mostly demolition). I should have checked up. I should have used my head. I didn't.

After he and his companion left for the day, I went in to see what it all looked like. I was horrified to see dust EVERYWHERE - no plastic sheeting - and they'd even laid the towel bars and shelving DIRECTLY ON MY QUILT.

I was livid.

Stephen helped me cart the quilt outside and give it a good shake to remove as much of the dust as possible. It's better, but it's not completely clean.

I've not washed this quilt - it doesn't get dirty because we roll it back every night, out of the way. But I'm going to have to wash it now.  It's a large quilt - almost king-sized (made large because our mattress is quite thick). I was looking at it the other day, and yes, it will fit in my washing machine.

But here's the problem - Laka, our parrot, grabbed at it with her beak, piercing through the seam on one of the Ohio star blocks. It's a fiddly tear - can't simply be sewn up. Some kind of "patch" is going to have to be made before I wash it, or that tear is likely to fray and leave an unsightly hole (as it is now, you have to hunt to find the spot where she tore it).

Of course I've got scraps from this and can do the work... but it's not going to be fun - and will be hair-raising to put this into the wash.

GULP!

I'm going to have to do something with it. I've been procrastinating on this - but somehow that quilt isn't washing itself, and I can't have it on the bed again until it's clean.

Wish me luck!