I have a FINISH, you guys! This is the vintage 1960s era family quilt that I rescued for a friend.
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| Vintage Quilt Repaired and Quilted, Ready to Go Home |
It was like an episode of This Old House where they start out planning to just update the kitchen of a 19th century home but then they find all kinds of problems hidden inside the walls... There were definitely moments when I wasn't sure I could get this quilt back together again and had to walk away from it for a few days before I felt comfortable about how I was going to proceed.
I'm very sad that this next photo is out of focus, because it was the best picture that shows my greatest accomplishment with this project -- this quilt is now SQUARE, as in STRAIGHT sides and 90 DEGREE ANGLES at every corner!
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| The Victory of Straight Sides and Square Corners |
Squaring up the quilt top before quilting it was challenging, to say the least. There are all different fiber contents from cottons to poly blends in the quilt top, with different weave densities, so some of the fabric patches had shrunk at drastically different rates from their neighboring patches over the years. You know how quilters talk about quilt tops that have "C-cup blocks" here and there? Well, this top had C-cups, D-cups, and a big maternity bump through the center. I used the vertical channel locks to keep the sides of the quilt straight as I was advancing it, scooting the raw edges of the fabric in a LOT in the center of the quilt top despite how scary all that fullness looked, and I was seriously amazed that I was able to "quilt it out" with my loopy meander swirl. So, even though I didn't fully understand why vertical and horizontal channel locks were a big deal when I was shopping for my longarm machine two years ago, I get it now and I am REALLY glad that I have electronic channel locks on my APQS Millennium machine!
The actual quilting went pretty fast. I initially was going to partially float the quilt top since "they" say that gives you "more control" with a quilt top that isn't perfectly flat and square. I pinned it to my quilt top roller but, try as I might, I was not able to get the top rolled up without the center of the quilt top stretching out wider than the top and bottom edges. So I unrolled, unpinned, floated, and prayed...
In this next photo, I've drawn around each of the patches that I added in yellow so you can see how extensive the repairs were:
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| Everything Outlined in Yellow is a Patch that I Added |
As you can see, almost all of the patches had to be pieced together from multiple fabrics ahead of time to adequately cover the holes in the quilt top without being obvious later additions. Because the original quilter had used most of her fabrics multiple times in the quilt top, I made sure to repeat my new fabrics and spread them around the quilt top as much as possible for a balanced look. Several of my fabrics, such as the Kaffe Fassett and Tula Pink scraps, were bleached before using them to mellow their vivid hues and mimic half a century of fading. I am really, really pleased with how well those patches blend in and disappear, especially after quilting and laundering.
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| Without the Yellow Outlines, Can You Spot My Repairs? |
Here's a shot of what this quilt top looked like on my design wall after I'd separated it from its shredded backing fabric, polyester batting that was coming out through the holes, and the acrylic yarn ties that held it together at 4" intervals:
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| Quilt Top Separated from Original Batting and Backing, Prior to Repairs |
And here's a shot of what the quilt looked like originally, in one of the good sections, with those original yarn ties:
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| Original Acrylic Yarn Ties in a Good Section of the Quilt |
So, why did I quilt this instead of replicating the original yarn ties? Several reasons. Number one, I don't know how to tie a quilt with yarn in a way that would create tiny pom poms like this, and I'm not really interested in learning. Actually, that's reason number two, because if I thought it was the best solution for the quilt I would have grumbled and complained but I would have figured out how to do it anyway. The real reason this quilt is now quilted instead of tied is the fragility of the vintage fabrics in the quilt top. I patched the worst places, but it was a balancing act -- if I replaced every piece of fabric that was seriously compromised by age and UV exposure, I'd have had to replace 80% of the quilt top and it would look like a completely different quilt when I was finished. Yarn ties put a lot of stress on the quilt top fabric at each knot, and the proof of that is the many places in the quilt top where the yarn tie had ripped right through the quilt top fabric. Quilting the layers together marries the fragile quilt top fabrics to the strength of the new batting and backing fabric better so it's impossible to grab hold of just the top layer accidentally all by itself. The loops that I incorporated into my meander quilting were functional in that they helped to draw up excess fullness in the quilt top, but they were also a little nod to the original polka dot effect of the orange yarn ties. I also saved all of the orange yarn knots when I cut them off, with the idea that they COULD be reattached by machine if the quilt's owner really missed them, like with a button sew-on tacking stitch or something. I chose the orange binding fabric to maintain continuity with the original color scheme, and even though the new backing fabric is lavender instead of solid orange (the quilt's owner requested a different color backing), it has little orange dots that reminded me of the orange yarn ties:
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| Yarn Ties Saved in a Baggie; Label Embroidery Thread and Backing Fabric Chosen to Coordinate |
I used the Liberty lettering font in my Bernina v8 embroidery software to digitize the label, with expanded font spacing to ensure the dates would be legible. It's stitched in 100% cotton embroidery thread because the sheen of a polyester or rayon embroidery thread seeming like a jarring anachronism to me. So, after appliquéing the label to one of the quilt corners, the only thing left to tackle was the binding.
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| Hand Stitched Binding Takes FOREVER |
...And I ALWAYS underestimate how long "just need to add binding" actually takes me. With this quilt, which was approximately 63" x 70" when I put it on the frame, I think it took me around eight hours to hand stitch the binding to the back side of the quilt, and that doesn't include the time it took to make the binding, machine stitch it to the front of the quilt, and join the ends of the binding together. This quilt had hand stitched binding originally and it deserved to get hand stitched binding again, but I REALLY need to learn how to do a completely machine stitched binding for the many projects that deserve to be finished but fall short of being heirlooms, you know what I mean?
If you have a favorite machine stitched binding technique, please share a link to a tutorial, video, or book in the comments so I can try it next time!
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| Removing the Original Hand Stitched Binding, Backing and Batting Prior to Repairs |
This quilt will be returned to its owner at church on Sunday morning (we both sing in the choir). I really, REALLY hope she likes it. It is a scary thing to take a scissor and a rotary cutter to someone else's family treasure, and there's definitely no putting it back the way it was!
My One Monthly Goal for April was to finish my son Lars's Mission Impossible graduation quilt top and to get this vintage quilt top quilted, both of which I managed to accomplish by the end of April. I am finally getting the hang of this Setting Reasonable Goals thing!
My OMG for May is to Complete Lars's Graduation Quilt by the May 26th Deadline
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| My EQ8 Rendering of Lars's Mission Impossible Graduation Quilt |
So now my OMG (One Monthly Goal) for May is to get Lars's Mission Impossible quilt 100% completed no later than the May 26th deadline. Our church is doing a big graduation blessing sendoff service for all of the high school graduates on June 9th where they process into the church in their caps and gowns during a slideshow on the big screens of their baby pictures and graduation pictures, and then each graduate's parents wrap him or her in a quilt and lay hands on them for a blessing, and all of the moms and grandmoms are weeping and the men are pretending they have something stuck in their eye... But the pastors and staff members pile all of these quilts in the middle of their conference table and pray over them and bless them ahead of time at their staff meeting, and this is why I have a hard deadline of May 26th to get the quilt finished and dropped off at the church office.
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| My Most Recent Photo of the Actual Quilt Top, Still In Sections |
I finished assembling the quilt top at 3 AM and all of my helpers were asleep, so I didn't get a photo of the finished top before I folded it up and hung it in the Quilt Purgatory Closet. But the top is done, ready to quilt.
Having been recently reminded that hand stitching the binding on a quilt this size is likely to take me the better part of a week, I really only have two weeks to get this quilt loaded, quilted, and off the frame...
Meanwhile, the intended recipient of this quilt is off enjoying his prom tonight:
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| My Lars-of-Ours With His Lovely Prom Date, Corinne |
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| My Lars-of-Our With His Parents, Who Are Trying to Figure Out How 18 Years Went By So Fast |
I'm linking up with:
FRIDAY
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MONDAY
TUESDAY
