Repairing a Quilt from 1941

Recently, I was given the honor of repairing a quilt made in 1941.  I adore antique quilts, and having the chance to help bring this one back to life was an honor and an amazing experience.

It is a beautiful Sunbonnet Sue quilt with very detailed Sues appliqued and embroidered to a butter yellow background.  The entire quilt was sewn by hand, and then quilted by hand.  The blocks were quilted with diagonals, and the border quilted with a feathered swag and a cross-hatch pattern.  The edge was finished with prairie points.

My client's relative (grandmother, I think?) made this quilt and it has been well loved over the years.  It eventually went into storage, the relative passed away, and later a niece was born and named after the relative, so the decision was made to give the niece this quilt.  They pulled it out of storage, to find it moth damaged, stained, and in need of some TLC.

This is the quilt, before I did any work on it:

It's lovely and I'm sure was simply stunning when it was brand new, but time has not been kind to it.  The quilt had been washed to try and remove the stain, but it was not entirely successful.  There is a hole in the quilt, to the right of the stain, between the purple and green Sues.  The prairie points are disintegrating, and the fabric of the top border is fraying away.

Since my client just wanted the quilt stabilized and not completely repaired (which I don't think I could have done, to be honest), we focused on the two big things:  The hole in the quilt and the fraying borders.  I also recommended turning the quilt into a wall hanging, so that it could be viewed and enjoyed, but in a way that would be much safer for the quilt than actually being on a young girl's bed.

The first thing I did was to tackle the hole in the quilt.  Here is a close-up image of the hole before I worked with it:

One good thing about this hole is it allowed me to see into the quilt, so I could see how it was constructed.  Older quilts didn't always use batting in the center, sometimes old thin blankets known as sheet blankets were used.  Sometimes a piece of flannel was used.  I could see that this quilt did in fact use a very thin batting, so I dug through my batting scraps to find a suitably thin piece to use to patch the hole.

To get my batting piece the right shape, I first put a piece of paper under the quilt, so I could trace the shape of the hole onto the paper, and used that as a pattern to cut the batting piece.  I then stitched it into place by hand using a big basting stitch.

Once the batting was secured, I made a template from clear template plastic to make an applique shape that I could sew on top of the hole.  It needed to be big enough to completely cover the batting and basting stitches, and so that the edges of the applique piece were over good, solid fabric that would be able to take my stitches as I appliqued it in place.

The clear template plastic ensured that I could see the hole and the fabric around it so I could trace my applique shape adequately large.  Then I cut out two applique pieces, one in yellow for the front of the quilt and one in white for the back (as the backing was muslin).  With matching thread, I hand stitched the applique pieces both on the top and the back of the quilt.

After the applique pieces were both sewn on, I quilted over the patch, following the lines of quilting that already existed.  Though the hand quilting was done with white thread, I was afraid that machine quilting with white thread would be too visible and look out of place, so I used matching thread instead.  It helps the new quilting to blend in with the existing quilting.

Now that the hole has been repaired and the quilt has been stabilized, it is time to repair the borders.  The easiest way to do this was to simply sew new fabric on top of the existing borders and quilt the new fabric to the quilt.  I must admit, even though the borders were in bad shape, it almost killed me to cover up the beautiful hand quilting.  At least it is still visible on the back of the quilt!

See what I mean?  Beautiful!

But this was the state of the top border on the quilt, you can see how badly damaged it is.  Something simply had to be done to repair the borders.

First things first, I had to trim off the prairie points.  Then, using the same yellow fabric I used to patch the hole, I sewed new border fabric onto the quilt top, with the raw edge of the new border fabric following the seam line of the original borders.  I used the same matching thread to do the quilting, making a straight line pattern that almost mimics the look of a piano key border.  This quilting was easy to do and maintained the style decision of the maker to have the quilting of the borders differ from the quilting in the blocks.

Once the new borders had been completed, I added a basic binding around the whole quilt to finish it.  I also added a hanging sleeve on the back of the quilt, using a piece of 1930's reproduction fabric from my stash that complimented the fabrics in the Sues' dresses on the quilt front.

Here is the repaired quilt:

My client was very happy with the quilt repairs, and I had a fantastic time doing what I could do help preserve this piece of quilting history.

What about you?  Have you ever had an opportunity to repair or restore an antique quilt?

What's new?

Well, it's been a while since I wrote so I thought I'd do a bit of show-and-tell to show you what I've been up to.

This is a quilt I made for a swap.  I received fabrics from my swap partner, who mentioned she wanted a lap quilt with an ocean or beach theme to give as a retirement gift to a coworker.  This is what I came up with.  The outer border is a Disappearing 4-Patch, which gives it movement such as water rippling in tide pools.  The applique was just a lot of fun to add to the quilt, too.

I made this quilt for a friend.  I'm not sure if she was trying to stump me when she said her favorite colors were pink, purple, teal, and BLACK.  But I found the perfect pattern, and this quilt was born.  She LOVES it, and that makes me really happy.  :)

A client fell in love with this quilt, which came as a kit that she bought.  But she's not a quilter!  So she hired me to put it together for her, and it turned out so super cute!

I loved the teacup pattern so much, I made another one for a friend using fabric from my stash.

Today, I'll be binding this behemoth.  It's a King size t-shirt quilt, made from my client's running t-shirts he's been collecting since around 1982.  It turned out beautifully, and I can't wait to finish it and return it to him.  :)

Oh, and have you seen?  Bonnie Hunter's new mystery is under way.  She posted the first clue with colors and yardage, you can see it here:

Celtic Solstice Mystery

I'm debating doing it.  If I do, I think I'll choose a different colorway.  This one just isn't speaking to me like last year's did.  Oh, and the great thing is she's offering it in two sizes!  Big and Bigger LOL.  Will you be participating this year?

Finally Finished!

Well, it's been a long time coming, but my Easy Street quilt (Bonnie Hunter's latest mystery) is finally finished.  100% finished.  As in, going through the washing machine so I can sleep under it tonight FINISHED.

Woo hoo!!!

I'm so happy!  And it's done just in time for our hot weather.  I used plain cotton fabric for the backing and wool batting.  Wool is great for summertime quilts as it is lightweight and breaths well, it's not really hot at all.

Whoops, there went the buzzer on the washing machine.  Time to move this baby over to the dryer!

Binding By Machine

OK, I've already given you the tutorial on doing your binding the "traditional" way, where you sew the binding to the front of your quilt, wrap it around to the back, and hem in place by hand.  You can find that tutorial here:

http://valeriespatchwork.blogspot.com/2012/01/bginners-guide-to-binding.html

But what happens if you're in a hurry and need to do it by machine?  What if your backing is fleece or some other material that just doesn't lend itself well to hand stitching?  You can always do the entire job by machine.

This tutorial assumes that you have no experience at all with making quilt bindings, so it will take you through all the steps from cutting your strips to finishing with the machine.  You can download it here.

http://www.valeriecustomquilting.com/tutorials/VCQTutorial_BindingByMachine.pdf

Like the other tutorial, it is somewhat large and may take a while to download, so please be patient.  It is also full of photos and lots of good information so you can successfully bind your quilt.  Have fun!

A Beginner's Guide to Binding

Are you a new quilter?  Have you made your first quilt, even quilted it, and are stuck with those dauting instructions to "bind to finish"?  Do you even know what the binding is?  :)

This is a close-up view of the binding on the quilt at the top of this post.

If you have never bound a quilt before, or if you have experienced problems while working on your binding, then you should take a look at my tutorial.  (Please be patient, it's a large file with LOTS of photos, but well worth the wait.)

http://www.valeriecustomquilting.com/tutorials/VCQTutorial_MakeAndAttachBinding.pdf

In this tutorial, I go over all the steps of binding your quilt from making your own straight-grain binding, to sewing it on the quilt, to the final hand hemming for that beautiful finished look.

To be honest, binding is not hard.  It may take some time, but I love to do it in the evenings while watching my favorite TV shows or movies.  And in the end, you'll have the satisfaction of having beautifully finished your quilt.  What could be better than that?  :)