About Rags

This was once a huge (queen?) quilt. I found it in the garbage years ago. It was retired as bedding a couple of years ago because it just couldn't be washed any more- it was coming apart. It was becoming rags.

In September I pulled it out as a candidate for couch cushion batting, but it was too fragile. So, I just let it fall apart, a few tugs here, a snip there. It came apart into no fewer than five layers- a layer made of baby blankets and double flannel sheets, a layer of pieced pink and white patches, a layer of muslin, a central layer of an old white woven coverlet, all sandwiched in a 1930s Dresden plate kind of thing. It was a blanket within a blanket within a blanket.

I have sorted the remnants- patches still holding together on their muslin backing, large plain lining/backing, flannel sheet panels, shreds (to try in paper making).

The original quilt is now gone in any material sense- it is now these separate components, little stacks of rags. I finished a little sewing project last night that I started with some of these components, which will be coming up next. But for now, I think I just wanted to take note of this weird process of taking something apart.