I love quilts. I especially love vintage and antique quilts.
So imagine how excited I was to find a depression era quilt for $2.
This quilt had sat folded for a long time, was faded by the sun on some areas, and the trim was ratty and falling apart.
So much work has gone into this quilt. Look at the stitching.
I had to save it!
Best practices for quilt restoration include only adding onto the existing quilt, never cutting into it or removing pieces. Whatever you do should be able to be undone if necessary. Holes should be covered with applique, and new binding should be sewn over existing binding.
After a wash in the gentle cycle, I created binding with a pink cotton that was as close a colour to the original that I could find. I also used 100% cotton quilter’s thread; polyester or blended thread is too strong for antique fabrics and can tear them.
I used the ladder stitch to create an invisible seam on both sides of the binding.
One change I made to the style of the existing binding was to do mitered corners instead of rounded ones. Getting a sharp corner is difficult, but worth it in the end.
Here’s the final product folded on my couch:
Another thing that quilt restoration experts appreciate is attaching a label of who made it and when, or where it was found if you don’t know. Here’s what I did:
I’m so happy with how it turned out. My kids are happy to have a new quilt to get cozy on the couch with. And we get to have a piece of history live on in our home.
