Just A Little Story...

So I just remembered I had taken all these pictures to flaunt a {HUGE} project I had completed. 

Huge pretty much refers to the importance this of project and the effect it had on my sanity.

Let me tell you a story about a blanket.

So when Dale was a very tiny human he carried around this blanket that his mom made for him from one of her mu-mu's.

(let me know if i get anything wrong!)

He attached himself to it because it was so soft.

It went with him everywhere for a very long time.

(I wont say how long for fear that Dale might kill me ;) )

It was his lovie.

He carried it around on his head so it was always in VERY good condition.

Seriously how cute is that?

So My M-I-L  found this blankie when Riley Bug was very little and gave it to us thinking that maybe she would love it as much as Dale did but by this time Riley had already found her own lovie. Her beloved Pig. (that she still cant go anywhere with out!)

So she liked it but it wasn't her number 1.

Then Mak was born. She fell in LOVE with it!

She is our little Linus, carrying it around wherever she goes!

She has lovingly named it her "Mimi"

One day she left it too close to the dog cage and the dog pulled it into its cage and gashed its claws into it!

I was SO mad!!

Even more mad than Dale.

It had survived for 27 years in perfect condition and we ruin it within a year and a half....

This is what it looked like afterward...

These don't really do it justice. there were huge holes and little holes everywhere! It looked bad.

I washed it up and she used it like that for a couple weeks until I could get everything ready.

Mak cant live very long, at all, without it and so this was gonna have to be a marathon project. I found the extra quilt backing that my M-I-L had given me, that made the original blanket (really lucky!) and then my M-I-L found some fabric that wasn't the same kind but had a very similar feeling to it. 

I used the original blanket to size out the quilt backing and started cutting the blue squares out.

 I did it very scientifically ;)

I did this all a week before hand and then knew that the coming Saturday would need to be a sewing day.

So as soon as Mak woke up in the morning I snuck away with her Mimi and started cutting it up.

I cut up every bit of salvageable material I could get.

This is the part that made me the MOST nervous!

I had JUST enough squares!!

Then I started sewing!!!

Square by square.

Strip by strip.

Front to back.

It took me SEVEN AND A HALF HOURS!!!

(20 min. of that getting the tension right on my brand new sewing machine. It was its maiden voyage. Which made me MORE nervous than I already was.)

What if after all this work she didn't like it, wouldn't attach herself too it because it wasn't the same.

I was a wreck! 

Ask Dale.  No, Don't......

It was finished...

I was very proud of it but would it pass Mak's test.

Oh, did it ever!!

She was so excited when she saw it! Picked it up like she hadn't seen it in weeks and has never forgotten it since!

Relief!