A new life for my mother's knitted cotton bedspread?
Some years ago, my mother knit this cotton bedspread for me. She loved to knit, the more complicated the pattern the better. I used the bedspread for some time, but eventually put it aside. It is quite heavy, and difficult to manipulate on the bed. But a few weeks ago, I decided I was tired of the quilt I had on the bed, and pulled this out, to see if I'd want to use it again. Alas, I discovered that there were a number of large holes in the spread, not just the stretched areas where blocks come together (easy to repair), but other places where the thread had unravelled within a block. I must have washed the quilt with bleach, trying to remove a few small stains, one of which is visible towards the center of the photo. The bleach not only didn't work on the stain, but I think it continued to eat away at the fabric. Having done a little discharge work using bleach, I now know how important it is to rinse the bleach out of the fabric with a...