Need ideas on quilting this 40 year old quilt
 

[ATTACH=CONFIG]601614[/ATTACH] I was asked if I could repair this quilt, it was the ladys son's quilt and he loved it so much - he was in an accident at his job and passed away, however she has been looking for someone to fix this quilt. I have now fixed 20 areas of frayed edges, holes and pulled stitches, and now I am ready to add new batting and backing, however before that I need to requilt it, and need your assistance on how should I quilt it, in order I don't take away from the quilt. I think it is an old string quilt, so all the pieces are stitched down. Any help would be appreciated.

I would do nothing more than stitch in the ditch or next to the ditch, but not all the ditches.

How kind of you to take the time to do this.

I have been having problems with seems opening up on my "gifted" quilts and have had to repair them. For this lovely quilt, you may want to do a large swirl pattern to cross over all of the seams.

Was it initially machine quilted in straight lines? That's what it looks like. If so, do the same with it---machine quilt they same way the original maker did, same stitch length, same color thread. Try to make it impossible to tell which quilting lines are original and which are restoration. If the original quilting is meticulous, make yours the same. If the original quilting is haphazard, make yours the same.

I would do this too. I would stitch in straight lines all across the quilt, to keep it together. That is probably what the owner wants, for it to stay together real good.

Are you thinking of hand quilting or machine quilting?

Also, I'm not sure I understand. You need to requilt *before* adding new batting and backing? You mean you are planning to add a batting and backing to the existing quilt? In other words, are you taking off the old batting and backing first? If the existing machine stitching I see is the quilting, I'm not sure how you are going to get all of the old batting out of the quilt unless you take out all the old machine quilting. If this is what you plan to do, I would take photographs of the quilt and then re-quilt by machine following the old plan as much as possible.

For batting, I would suggest either Hobbs wool or Quilter's Dream cotton. Either of these would keep the quilt soft and supple.

Thanks for all your great ideas and comments. The top fabric pieces were stitched onto a sheet, but not all the seams were 1/4 inch, so many pulled away from the stitching lines. There was enough of the flannel with the blue pattern (which were mainly the ones to pull apart) included in her 3.5 inch borders, that I replaced those I found needed to be redone. The backing and batting were full of holes and ripped apart, also the binding was shredded on all 4 sides and corners, so it was very easy to remove both the backing, batting and also the borders. The quilt was tied with yellow wool, so will be putting them back once I get it quilted. I am now able to add the new batting and backing then quilt the sandwich together. I do not want to take anything away from the quilt, so will do some ruler work on it keeping the lines intact and just make a minimum number of new lines to hold it together nicely.

I agree with this. Try to make it look the same as the rest of the quilt.