A work friend (G) is going through it right now. She’s been selected as care giver and clearer outer for an old friend who is terminally palliative. Her friend was a quilter prior to falling ill and has an apparently huge stash. G brought a giant bag of fabric and notions and cutting boards and rotary cutters for me the other day and let me know it was the tip of the ice burg.
Now. If you’re familiar with other people’s fabric stashes. You know often it’s filled with stuff you won’t necessarily use. And it REEKED of smoke. G is a smoker and said it smelled bad.
I also understand that my place in this transaction is to kindly accept what she is parting with and move it on because it’s too hard on loved ones to just throw out something that meant so much.
I pulled out some fabrics I thought I could use and dropped them in a bucket with a pretty powerful enzyme cleaner. Then panicked because the batik was bleeding all over the white
Dropped a few colour catchers in and let it soak for 24 hours. Tossed it in the wash for a couple of washes and hung it to dry.
After ironing. It passed the smell test. And the colour catchers worked.
So I decided to make G a quilt, from her friends stash. She can choose to keep it or pass it back to her friend. It’s just a super simple pattern super simply quilted and so not my usual.
You put so much good out into the world. And wonderful quilts, too. This was such a gift for you to give to these friends going through a difficult time. I imagine the quilt will carry your kindness to whomever it warms.
I recently read/heard/saw on a YouTube video that vodka will help with odors. Many ways to do it - spray or wash with, leave it in the sun, spray more. Don’t know if it works, I haven’t tried it myself.
But what a nice way to show your friend some love!
Take it from a costume designer who’s worked a lot of theaters: vodka absolutely works to kill odors. Particularly human odors. It will not damage the fabric, and you won’t smell the booze later. It’s awesome.
The only problem we ever had was that if the interns knew that the ‘Wardrobe Spray’ was vodka, some would try drinking it/sneaking off with it. In grad school my Costume Shop Manager used to make a big production out of making a batch, by pouring in the vodka (kept locked in a cupboard in her office), water, then adding some rubbing alcohol into the bottles, and labeling as such. And talking loudly about how drinking the rubbing alcohol could cause blindness.
Oh yeah, and there was that one time that I got a phone call from the receptionist at a theatre I was working at… I was the Shop Manager there, and we were out of vodka for the spray, so I sent an intern who was trustworthy (an of-age) to buy a bottle of the cheapest crap. The intern took a company car, and accidentally locked her keys (and phone) in it. She didn’t have a number for me, so the liquor store employee helping her, called the theatre directly. The receptionist was like ‘Um, the intern is on the phone from the liquor store, and she says you sent her there “for work”. I’m just assuming there’s a totally normal explanation for that.’
Reminds me of the first time a young baker tried pastry vodka behind the owners back at the bakery I worked in. Needless to say, they never wanted to sneak another drink on the clock.
That was such a sweet thing to do for your friend. Getting other peoples fabric can be a bit daunting. You really made the best of it. The quilt is great and I love how you changed up the colors of the binding.
