Pandemic projects: Mother rescuing jeans blanket made for son 40 years ago
Bernadette Powers spreads the jeans quilt on her floor and pieces it together like a puzzle.
“It’s such a part of my childhood. It’s kept me warm in cold Spokane winters, and it has such nice memories of home.” Gannon Curran Formerly of Spokane, now living in California
Some gifts keep giving long after you unwrap them on Christmas morning.
That’s been true of a quilt Gannon Curran received from his mother, Bernadette Powers, some 40 years ago.
Powers made the double-bed size quilt from jeans Curran had outgrown, mixed with some denim thrift store finds, and she’d backed it with cozy red flannel.
“I don’t know what I was thinking,” said Powers. “I did a bit of sewing, but I’ve never been a quilter.”
In fact, she wonders if she’d actually finished it when she tucked it under the tree all those years ago. Powers was notorious in her family for attempting ambitious Christmas projects and running out of time to finish them before the holiday arrived.
“I’d wrap them up and attach a note saying, ‘stay tuned,’ ” she recalled.
Whether or not the quilt was a some-assembly-required gift, Curran loved it, and he took it with him when he left home to attend the University of Washington in 1992.
“It’s such a part of my childhood,” said Curran, 47. “It’s kept me warm in cold Spokane winters, and it has such nice memories of home.”
The quilt stayed with him in Seattle for more than 20 years, and then went with him on his recent move to California.
However, it began to show its age, growing threadbare and fraying around the edges, but Curran didn’t want to part with it.
“It took on the status of a family heirloom,” he said.
When he came to visit his mom in September, he brought the quilt with him.
“I thought it would be fun to bring it back to its original maker,” he said.
Thus, Powers’ pandemic project arrived in urgent need of some TLC.
“Its true home is the place that when you go there they’ll always take you in – even when you bring a project with you,” she said, laughing.
Before Curran returned to California this fall, he did some thrift store shopping with her, and together they scavenged denim to use in the redo.
Powers has been working on the quilt ever since, and now that Curran has returned for the holidays, they plan to do some of the finishing work together.
“I discovered it’s a little harder than I thought to piece the 24-inch squares,” she said. “Once I decided it wouldn’t be a historical recreation, it got a bit easier.”
The crazy quilt pattern is forgiving, but even so, Powers said she spent a lot of time puzzling out what to fit where. She’s using many of the original blocks, and this time around, she and her son picked out navy blue border fabric to frame the squares.
“Working on this project has brought back a lot of fond memories of Christmas past,” Powers said.
When asked whether the encore performance Christmas gift would be finished, or in “kit” form when placed under the tree, Powers chuckled.
“Stay tuned,” she said.