Originally Posted by
Wanabee Quiltin
I have bought many fragile vintage quilt tops. I sent them to a long arm person who did a lovely panto on them. They are perfect now but I do not wash or use them to wrap up in, they are mainly decorative on my bed. I did wash them once after they were finished. and some I had to wash before they were quilted because they were either dirty or smelled badly. Good luck.
Same here--I had a hand pieced set of blocks--some of the fabric very thin, that I put together and then washed the top (very carefully! hand washed--but it was so yellowed I wasn't sure I wanted to quilt it if it wouldn't come clean) and then machine quilted. I don't use it on a bed or roll around in it, but it hangs great and I'm glad that I machine quilted it--keeps it very stable.
I know many thing that hand quilting is the only way to go with vintage quilts, but if you look up quilt history, once sewing machines were available to the masses, quilts were often machine quilted--even in the 20's.