Completed Repaired Quilt

I finished the quilt repair and here are the final photos.

The replacement fabrics in this photo are the yellow and the pink floral just above Elma's name.

In this photo you can see the quilt is twin sized.  I replaced 14 of the original triangle pieces.  One was not really bad enough but the original maker had matched the fabric on facing squares so I followed that pattern.

I left the original fabric below the appliqued new pieces and tried to match the colorations as best I could.  The backing was in wonderful condition so when I did the quilting on the new pieces I only sewed through the top and the batting, not going all the way through the back.  That way the original quilting is still there and the new pieces are still quilted in the same pattern as the old.  On a few places all I needed to to was to insert a tiny piece of fabric and do a buttonhole stitch around the hole.

The owner was very happy with it!

Repairing An Antique Quilt

My upstairs neighbor asked if I knew how to fix an old quilt that her grandmother made.  

As you can see, some of the fabrics are in shreds with the cotton batting poking out.

I explained how I repair quilts, I applique over the damaged area, leaving the original fabric for posterity, then requilt following the same stitching.

The polka dot fabric is a piece of the new fabric.  I usually use the wrong side out so that the colors are not so bright that it looks odd.  I can rarely find fabrics in the right tint to match old and faded colors.

I like how the strips between the clover shaped squares have embroidered signatures and quite a few have year dates.  The earliest is this one from 1934 and the others are dated through 1937.

I love quilts like these, true treasures and so worth saving for future generations no matter how bad the condition is.  

I'll post next week when I am finished with the quilting and will try to get a shot of the full quilt, it's a twin size.