Saving Blankie

I'd like you all to meet Blankie.

Blankie has seen better days. He has been a constant companion to Sprout for over 9 years - some of those more constant than others. When she was an infant and toddler she took him (and Lambie) everywhere with her. Back in those days Blankie was a gorgeous chenille blanket from Churchill Weavers - which I discovered has apparently gone out of business. Sad face.

Back in his heyday, Blankie looked sort of like this...but pink. And no, I don't know why he's a he. He just is.

Anyway, Blankie has been crumbling before our very eyes. Behaving much like the museum-bound artifact that he is. We attempted a "fringectomy" and stitched around the edges to stop the unraveling. He has several huge scars where we sewed huge tears back together. He is a mess.

A week or so ago Sprout was lamenting his sad condition and broke down in tears that he was going to completely fall apart and then she would need a new one.

Did I mention the company that makes them has gone out of business? That you can get one on eBay - but it will cost you $200 (!) and that she is 9 1/2? All of these factors add up to a great big negative on a replacement strategy.

So I came up with the brilliant (I think) idea of sewing Blankie to some sort of soft, supportive backing fabric that would hold him together and allow him to live a long life of soothing the jangled nerves of my pre-pubescent child. Sometimes a girl just needs her Blankie.

I went to Jo-Ann Fabrics and found this nice velvety/veloury fabric. The goal was for it to be super-soft and thin enough to be cuddly once it was hooked onto Blankie. This fit the bill nicely. And the stars are cute.


My original plan was to sort of quilt Blankie onto the top of the fabric. And no, I have no idea how I was going to do that. But once I laid him out on top of the new fabric, I had this great brainstorm that I could just sort of fold up the sides of the new stuff around him, like it was the binding on the blanket. Like a frame around Blankie.

Doesn't he look sad all laid out there, like some animal pelt? Poor Blankie - don't worry, it will get better...

So I wrapped the edges up and pinned them. Blankie is missing a huge hunk of corner so the end result isn't square, but I think that is somehow more fitting.

I even carefully (sort of) mitered the corners so there wouldn't be so many layers of fabric to jam through my underutilized sewing machine.

Where is that thing anyway?

So I found the sewing machine, and after breaking the needle, annoying the bejeezus out of the nice lady at Jo-Ann's with my sewing-machine-needle-buying cluelessness, finding that there was actually a spare in the machine (oops), tangling the thread several times, and remembering how much I adore my child and why it was worth doing all of this...got everything sewed up. Whew.

I think the end result is quite fabulous. He even looks pink again with his new backing. I did some vertical lines of stitching across Blankie's surface to stick him down to the backing so he is firmly attached.



And no, they are mostly not straight. And his scars are all still showing.

But I think that's OK. He's not going to be modeling anytime soon. And Sprout has been walking around hugging him and wearing him and loving him. And she's pretty happy with me, too.

Ah, the things we do for the love of a child. The things we can fix, we fix. The things we can't fix, we try to find a way to fix anyway. And sometimes it actually works out. I love it when that happens!