handquilting repair?
 

yesterday i headed out to work, only to arrive at my scheduled meeting a day early.

perfect. it was a gorgeous afternoon and the kiddo was taken care of, so i turned left instead of right, thinking a drive might cool my jets.

i passed the marsh store, a quilt shop in a big old house with a wrap around porch and a golden retriever sleeping in the sun.

i turned around and went in. the shop owner and i got to talking about yli threads (she had some. she has ALL the things) and she mentioned that someone had stopped in looking for someone to repair an old family quilt.

i took the phone number and went to see the quilt today.

the quilt in need of minor repair is a very traditional lone star, probably about 30 years old. it's made of polycottons and is bearding a bit, but it's lovely. it seems like two quilters worked on it originially, one far more skilled that the other. in several places the hand quilting has broken, mostly on the straight lines undertaken by the newer quilter.

i had to laugh at myself, screwing up one job (though no one was the wiser i had doen so) and picking up this other little job by stopping into a quilt shop. i have vowed no more projects or purchases until the three ufo's are keeping their recipients warm, but....who could resist?

so my question is.....when doing a repair like this, do you remove the entire line of broken stitching? enough of it to secure a knot and then fill in the line? or do you simply pick up where the break is, and continue down the line?

thanks for your help!

and stop into mystery lqs. you never know what you might find inside :)

aileen

If it was me, I would undo enough to tie a knot then proceed to fill in the broken stitching. I would also do a tug test to see if the old thread is still strong, if not then I would undo the whole line and restitch

I'm with rebeljane....best not too undo too much otherwise the integrity of the piece is in danger of being lost.

just sayin'... what a great adventure

I've done both ways within my own quilts when tread breaks unexpectedly. Hasn't seemed to be an issue with those not tied off in some fashion. Am going to have to do this with the one I'm currently repairing as well. For me it depends on how easily I can rip out any of the quilting to get to a long enough piece to actually tied off.