A few months ago, Josh brought home an old quilt top that belonged to one of his coworkers. It was hand pieced by her grandmother out of fabric from clothes that belonged to her mother and her mother's siblings. The top was beautiful, but there were some holes in the fabrics and some of the seams were coming apart. She had heard I quilted and asked Josh if I could perhaps repair and finish it.
I'd never worked with anything like this before, but I did some research on restoring old quilts and decided I was game to give it a try.
First, I squared up the quilt, cutting off some raggedy edges. This gave me some pieces of fabric from one side that were big enough to make patches. With those scraps and some from my own stash, I made some patches that I pressed on with double sided adhesive paper. I made sure to match the edge of the patches with existing seams so they looked natural in the quilt blocks. Then I basted the top with batting and backing that she picked out.
I quilted it by just going over all of the seams because the pattern of the top was so interesting that I didn't want to add another pattern with the quilting. In doing so, I was also able to reinforce the original seams, repair the ones that had come apart, and sew down the edges of the patches I had applied. I also like seeing the unique shape of each block on the back of the quilt.
This quilt was fun to work on and neat to see completed. Kara and her mom were excited about having it back in a usable condition and I was glad to be a part of the story of this family treasure!
