Wednesday, May 16, 2007

Restoration and resizing of an antique quilt

This is how the quilt (left photo) started out; at this point I have made a few cuts to free up "good" pieces.

Some of the pieces are arranged on the new foundation fabric (upper right). Nothing is sewn down yet at this point. I won't sew until I know how much of the foundation I can cover. I'm shooting for about a 36" square. The large rectangular center panel is a painting on velvet of two deer; very lovely work!
Lower left is a close up of what will be the upper right corner of the quilt. The blue flowers are painted on a tan velvet piece and includes a monogram "M". Just under the red and green plaid is one of the seams I made, as yet unembroidered. Lower right photo is another close up of a salvaged piece. You can just make out the date, 1905, on the shredded purple piece, which was not salvagable. I asked the owner if she would like to have the date embroidered on the quilt again in a different patch, and she agreed. In the lower left of this photo is a faded drawing of two owls done on velvet; I so wished I could have worked that patch into the finished quilt, but it was too damaged.


This shows the quilt all pieced to the foundation, and it just reached the 36" square that I'd outlined! After the edges are turned under for binding, it will be just under 36". At this point, I have not finished the embroidery that will cover the edges of the seams I made in reassembling.
I used stitches that were already on the quilt; trying to match the original stitch length and placement as much as possible.


And here is the finished wall hanging! It is still 102 years old, so other fabrics in it may degrade over time, but for now, it is in perfect and very displayable shape.
(Thank you to Michaela for holding it up for this photo!)





5 comments:

Thelma said...

Wow! That is totally amazing.You are so talented. Beautiful work, I bet the lady was so proud of what you done. It would be so nice to have a piece that old . And to have it restored to be able to show is awesome.

Marianne S-M said...

Janet, Thanks so much for sharing your incredible restoration work with CQ4N. It was quite fascinating to see. Marianne in NJ

allie aller said...

This was brilliant. Thanks for sharing your process.

JK said...

Beautiful work, and I can't even begin to imagine the work that went into the restoration of that gorgeous quilt. This can now be shared for generations.

Marissa said...

Wow! Amazing Janet. Hope more antiques like this one gets to your hands. Congratulations!
Greetings from Mexico and thanks for sharing this piece of restoration of history.
Marissa
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