Soft vintage quilt feel
 

Sorry I haven’t posted in a very long time. Have been in the hospital. I’m starting to feel a little stronger though and would like to start on a quilt for a Christmas present. Can someone tell me why the quilts of today don’t have that soft vintage quilt feel about them. So many of them feel stiff and store bought. I loved the way my grandmas quilts felt, soft and cuddly. Any suggestions?

To me, quilts soften over time. That can't be created. I also think today's quilts are "quilted to death". Some are so stiff from the micro quilting that is done on them. Perhaps, you are also thinking, love from Grandma, that makes everything better.

Grandma hand quilted. If you do that your quilts will be much softer.

What toverly said...... and, it helps to start with thin, thin, cotton batting and then many, many launderings. (think dryer lint in the dryer from fabric and batting)

I think the batting and use is what makes the difference. I have seen pictures of very old hand quilted quilts (think welsh quilts) that are just as densely quilted as any of today's quilts. Although I can't attest to how soft they are, pictures I have seen shown them draped over things that make me think they are like you describe. Antique batting was not bonded or needle punched or any of the modern conveniences we have today. Some quilts just had carded wool in them as the batting which required encasing it in something else, like cheesecloth type fabrics. Others had hand carded cotton. The nature of these battings required dense quilting to avoid batting migration and bearding usually 2" or less apart. Now I do agree that quilting spaced at 2" is not dense but I really think batting makes more of a difference than density of quilting. As a longarm quilter I have quilted both very densely and openly and IMHO the batting makes all the difference in the drape.
I definitely agree that use and repeated launderings will greatly contribute to a soft and drapey and cuddly quilt. Think of blue jeans. They really don't get nice and soft and comfortable until they have been used and laundered a lot. So even today's modern cotton battings will make a quilt soft and cuddly once it has been loved on for a while. But to hasten the process I would look for unbonded cotton battings like Quilters Dream. QD batting is still needle punched.
Another option is to not use any batting and back your quilts with something like Minkee and you will definitely get the feel you are remembering.

A lot of use - and washings - will soften up almost any quilt.

Also, some of the quilts were made from used garments which had been washed and the fabrics were soft to start with.

Some of the old quilts were lined with old sheets and tied.

I don't think "over washing & dryer drying" is the answer.......grandma didn't wash her Quilts often, nor did she have a dryer.......
i think fabrics she used were mostly recycled from other things....curtains, aprons, clothing....and she usually used muslin for the back....personally I do too...when washed, it is soft as a marshmallow(good quality muslin).
dont know for sure, but maybe the fabrics were manufactured differently too...probably not as many chemicals......

and it seems true, hand quilting is softer.....

Someone pointed out in a thread somewhat recently that vintage quilts, being hand quilted, only have the thread running on one side of each stitch whereas machine quilted quilts will have thread on both sides of each stitch which would add to the stiffness. That seemed to ring really true to me, since it seems no matter how densely you hand quilt something, it still is softer than if you machine quilted it. Yes, different battings will make the quilt feel different too.

I think hand quilting makes a huge difference.
Glad you're feeling better. Keep it up :)

your grandma probably used old clothes to make her quilts

I've seen any number of quilts from the late 1800s that have been machine quilted, the sewing machine opened up a lot of ways to make better use of their time on utility quilts

I think a lot of it has to do with how much actual quilting goes into the quilt. The dense, free motion quilting that seems to be popular these days can make a quilt feel quite stiff instead of soft. I made a quilt for a kid's organization once & they requested very dense quilting because the quilts would be washed so much. After I finished quilting it I found it to be so very, very different from my usual quilts. It was almost like you couldn't even feel the fabric & all you felt was the quilting.

I feel that a real tight quilting design makes the quilts a little more stiff. My grandma always put old blankets in the middle for the batting and that may be a difference too. I agree with you the old vintage quilts that my grandma made was so soft and fun to wrap up in.

Quilts today are 'quilted to death'. To avoid this I choose a large over all pattern. If you long armer has a Statler Stitcher and is computerized, the motif you choose can be enlarged creating a softer drape to your quilt.

I "sew" agree with you. I do not like anything "over-quilted". Some quilts shown here are so heavily quilted that I cannot see the fabric in the quilt. I sometimes think that "if even you can do it, why? I realize that beauty is in the eye of the beholder, and I love, love, love the few old family quilts I own. We don't really need, INMHOP, to quilt so heavily. We don't get things as dirty as perhaps folks did years ago, and our laundry facilities are so much better now, that we don't need to wash them to death. Further, I don't think we treat our quilts as roughly as they did years ago when we lacked such nice washing machines.

The fabric used has an awful lot to do with the softness of the final product. When I buy fabric, I always try to to buy a fabric with a very soft “hand” to it. It really makes a difference. It doesn’t have to be the most expensive or least expensive. Just go into the store and FEEL everything. Let your fingers pick the softness of your fabric. If it feels good on your cheek, it will not be scratchy or feel tight when completed. Also I tend to large meander all over the quilt. Tight quilting tends to tighten up a quilt. When I hand quilt I do a large stitch and not too much. Really makes for soft, cuddly almost worn feeling quilts. Love them. Just the way I do it, take it with a grain of salt, just sayin. Sometimes I use used vintage sheets for the backing, as long as they are not stressed or thread bare. They are super soft. They hold up really well.

My quilt shop did that for my last quilt. I was very happy with what she did. My quilt is not going to be laundered that much, and I wanted a softer drape.

bkay

Most of the vintage quilts I have are very heavy. The cotton batting is the real stuff and it gets lumpy but so soft. Hand quilting had to be close to keep the batting from lumping together in one spot. Most vintage quilts were made a cheap as possible. These quilters wouldn't splurge on batting for bed quilts. In the south left over cotton from the gin was used. I know my grandmother got it from the local cotton gin. She had to bring her own tow sack. I don't remember much but she would spread it out on the quilt back in the big frame. Since it was flat when being quilted it stayed in place.

I do think quilts tend to be overquilted these days, a decorative rather than a practical task.

I found that once I switched from W&N to Quilters Dream, my quilts got a lot softer and have a lovely drape.

When I think of a soft, cuddly quilt, I think of a tied, puffy quilt with high loft, polyester batting.

Yes, this! Also using and washing it will soften it but there is nothing like a hand quilted quilt.

Machine quilting has top and bottom thread interlocking for each stitch, hand quilting has either a top or bottom thread for each stitch, so the feel of hand quilting is just softer. Dense machine quilting is going to feel stiffer than dense hand quilting.

I don't think that close quilting necessarily makes a stiff quilt with poor drape. I bought a Mountain Mist cotton batting at a garage sale. It was veeery old. The original price sticker was a couple of dollars. The instructions on the bag said to quilt in lines 1/4" apart. Close quilting is needed for a plain cotton batting, which doesn't have a scrim layer on it which is often what's used now to keep batting from falling apart. As others have said, if you don't quilt close with such a product, you will have 'migration' and a lumpy quilt. Since this type of old batting is exactly the plain cotton like what my grandma used, and the close quilting still made a soft quilt with nice drape, I'd guess her hand quilting played a part in how her quilts felt.

I know she used new fabric-- scraps from clothing she made-- so I don't think using old clothing was what made her quilts soft. However, her new fabric was not like our modern LQS fabric. If you have bought vintage fabric, you will notice it is thinner, a lighter weight, woven with a finer thread, and often fewer threads per inch making a looser weave.

On the other hand, I have a quilt I made with good quality modern LQS fabric, which I purchased LA quilting for, asking particularly for a free motion quilting design that I created, that was moderately dense in some areas to very dense in others. It has a wool batting. After the first wash, I found it was very flexible, soft, and had a great drape that I was pleased with. ...So, go figure! lol

Just want to mention that dense machine quilting with polyester thread does not seem to affect softness and drape at all, in my experience. This seems to be true even when the polyester thread is not fine. I have quilted densely with Glide thread, for example, which is a 40 wt thread, and was surprised it did not stiffen the quilt. Cotton thread when densely machine quilted, on the other hand, can stiffen up a quilt a lot. I once made the mistake of stipple quilting a doll quilt with 50/3 cotton thread and it came out stiff as a board! Fine polyester thread and fine silk thread, in my opinion, are better for dense machine quilting than cotton thread.

For hand quilting, cotton thread works well for the reason mentioned above -- less thread is used. In addition, if you think about it, machine stitches "lock" together so the stitches themselves do not move. In hand quilting, a running stitch is used, which means that there is "give" in the quilting lines. I'm pretty sure this contributes to the softness of hand quilting as well.

I agree about hand quilting and washing contributing to softness. About 30 years ago I hand quilted a baby quilt that was used by the mother and frequently washed and dried in the washing machine. Almost 20 years later I was able to handle the quilt, which had obviously been well-loved and well-used. The binding had frayed along the edges. What was remarkable for me was the quilt's softness. It was like rubbing a cloud against my face! In that particular quilt I had used Mountain Mist Blue Ribbon 100% cotton batting. (Note: this is not a batting I recommend for hand quilting, as it is relatively hard to needle.) This batting started out as softer than, say, Warm and Natural, but it was nowhere near as soft at the beginning as after 15 years or so of machine washings. I suspect most cotton battings will soften up with multiple washings, but I'm thinking those that start out with a stiffer drape will probably never soften up as much as others.

I think most machine quilted quilts are soooo over quilted. I hand quilt and mine are pretty soft and drape nicely. This is only mho.