I have a friend who asked me to repair an old quilt for them. Quilt restoration isn’t my favorite kind of project, but I really like my friend, so I agreed, and the quilt was dropped off.
Oh, boy. It was a commercially made quilt, you know, the ones that are made in China. Hand quilted with really big stitches. Polyester blend fabric, poly batting, and made with a turned edge, rather than a binding. My inclination upon unwrapping the quilt was to return it to the owner, and explain that the quality of the quilt precluded spending a lot of time and effort to repair it. In my mind, it was nothing special – a commercial quilt that wasn’t particularly well made to begin with.
Extenuating circumstances caused me to reconsider. I decided to finish the quilt, and took two days out of my schedule to take care of it. This was the first significant project I produced in my new quilting space.
I was a bad blogger on this project – I didn’t a good job on photography. I was in a hurry to get this piece out of my house, so this is the closest I have to a “before” photo. My first step was to decide how much of the quilt I was going to repair. I removed that section by picking out the seams. As you can see, there wasn’t much left of the original piece.
New batting pieces were cut to fill in the shredded bits. I used some cotton/poly blend, because it was a similar weight.
I used the original piece to come up with measurements for the new blocks. I pressed it, and kept taking it more apart to see what was needed. Of course, the only fabrics I had in my stash to match were muslin and solid black. I popped into a local big box fabric store to get calicos to match as best as I could. One challenge was the fading across the quilt – the fabrics at the destroyed end were blue, but the rest of the quilt had faded to gray. I used gray fabric in my repair, to make the piece look as coherent as possible.
I tried to find a pattern of a mariners compass with a hexagon at the center. No luck. I tried to draft it in EQ7, but my skills on that software are crap. I ended up just eyeballing it and using a combination of machine piecing and hand appliqué. I think I got close enough.
Beauty provided some much needed moral support during this project.
This is the finished repair. I replaced the compass, the two sailboats on the left, and the edging. I did minimal quilting by hand.
The edging was THE WORST. I pieced the strip of squares and setting triangles, sewed it right sides together to some muslin, then flipped it, and slipped it over the old edging and stitched it down.
In this shot you can see the white backing from my repair, along with the other side of the quilt that is still original fabric.
This is not a job I’m overly proud of. I was disappointed with the fabric matching I was able to achieve, my compass looks wonky, and you can clearly see the repairs aren’t quite the right size.
The owner was over the moon with it. All of the flaws I see as a professional quilter were invisible to them. In their mind I am a magician – I fixed a quilt that had serious sentimental value to them. Their quilt is useable once again, and that was what they cared about.
Moral of the story? Look at a project before you agree to do it. I didn’t enjoy this one at all, but I felt good about it once I dropped it off with my friend.
You made someone’s day, and you learned something in the process. It’s all good! I think you did the best with what you had to work with! Thanks for sharing, Jen!
Hi Jen! That moral is an excellent lesson to share and to have learned. Ugg. I have had my hand raised for a few projects that I wish I had learned that lesson. Sometimes it is just hard to say no, isn’t it?! Nice job! ~smile~ Roseanne
Quilt repair is something I have been firm with friends and family about *not* doing. The only exception has been for quilts on my own bed, and honestly, I just really hate doing that kind of work. I’m glad your friends were over the moon happy with the repair, and kudos for you for sticking with it and getting it done.
You might not think it’s your best work, and it may have been commercially produced but it was probably who gave it rather than where it came from… okay now I guess that means I need to light a fire under my butt and start doing something on those quilt tops I was given to work on, the only issue I have is that they all have to be hand finished… the woman’s gram hand did everything! I will send you pictures
That was so nice of you to fix something with a high sentimental value. You did great especially for something so different from your normal.
I repaired a baby quilt for my daughter. I thought the thing should have been thrown out but it was sentimental to her.
My current quilt I am unhappy with the piecework and my quilting of it, but when I look at the finished product as a whole it looks wonderful.
I have done repairs and they are a labor of love. Why you changed your mind says they needed this from you – for one reason or another. Congrats on making it work and you friend now has her quilt back to love and be comforted by.
I feel your pain. I have had projects like yours. Pat yourself on the back. You deserve it!