Laying A Quilt To Rest

I had to lay a quilt to rest this week...as in, I had to chuck it. This is the second quilt I have had to throw away and the first quilt I ever made. When I was 13, we went to a friends house and the daughter had made this twin sized bed quilt. She went on and on about how hard it was and I remember her being a little pretentious about it. I remember thinking (in my 13 year old mind) 'How hard can it be? I could totally do that.' When we went home, I did a little math (never my strong suit) and cut myself a template out of printer paper. Or as we called it in ye olden days: typing paper. I raided Mom's sewing box for scraps and went to work. I had no idea what a rotary cutter was, or really anything at all about quilting. I simply cut around my paper template. Every now and then I would cut a sliver off and eventually I would have to cut a new template. It is a wonder the thing came out even remotely square. When I was done, thanks to my precisely atrocious calculations, my quilt was a generous queen size! So much for math. I had no idea how to quilt it, so I sewed it to the backing and flipped it inside out like a giant pillow case (and I used polyester batting...horrors!). I tied the quilt and called it good. I loved this quilt because looking at it was a trip down memory lane. The cow fabric? I had a jumper out of that! The sunflower stuff? Rachel had a jumper. The red checked farm fabric? Shorts. We were on the cutting edge of fashion back then. This quilt lasted for 20 years (just saying that makes me cringe!) but it was time to go. It has been slowly disintegrating and an unfortunate washing machine accident left it with a gaping hole that was just too much to fix. Now I shall observe a moment of silence! :)