A little TLC needed!

Well, I'm back but not with the quilt that I put on hold for my daughter's quilt. It is still in the works as I needed to order more thread. 

What I have today is the very first quilt that I made. It was a wedding gift for this cute couple back in July of 1996. 

Over the years and as their family grew, it has been loved...

cuddled under, slept under, played on...exactly how I anticipated they use the quilt. 

It is humbling to know that the quilt I made has been so loved!

Jump forward to 2015, and the quilt showed signs of wear that only a truly loved quilt can...faded and threadbare...especially around the binding.

The quilt is a traditional log cabin made on a foundation. I didn't know much about binding a quilt back then so I self bound the quilt with the backing fabric wrapped around to the front. I now know that a single fold binding is so much weaker than a double fold French binding hence the threadbare edges. 

I took the quilt home to give it some TLC and a renewed life. I removed the old binding and trimmed the edges. Believe it or not, I had a piece of the fabric still in my stash so I made a new double fold French binding and attached it. 

The new binding is on and ready to be hand stitched. 

You can see how the fabric has faded over the years.

The quilt is quite large for my first! It measures 62" x 80" and is machine quilted around the logs. For the most part, the quilting has held up nicely. 

I hand quilted a heart in the center of each log cabin and as you can see, most are still in tack. Not too bad for my very first quilt made 19 years ago! 

All ready to go home for some more love!