vintage flower garden, quilting or ties?
 

I got a cutter quilt a few weeks ago. It is the flower garden pattern with the small hexagon shapes made from vintage feedsacks. It was the size of maybe a queen bed, but I could only salvage a piece maybe 40 by 40 square to make into a baby quilt for a friend. The batting is in poor condition and the backing is pretty ugly/stained. The binding is also gone. BUT the actual quilt top is still good. I am slowly cutting the hand quilting to separate the quilt top piece out and it is taking a long time!

My questions--does this kind of quilt have to be hand quilted with little hexagon shapes (basically following the hexagon pattern) or has anyone ever seen this kind of quilt tied before? Will tying be faster/easier than hand quilting? I am concerned the hand quilting would take forever and the baby is due this summer. I could also do it on the machine but I'd rather do the tying instead but not sure if that would look weird or unusual for this quilt pattern. suggestions?

If you would rather tie it, then tie it. If it is a vintage quilt, many vintage quilts were tied and many vintage tied quilts are still in existence. Good luck!

I don't think tying would look weird, but maybe the fabric might be a little fragile for tying. If you dont want to handquilt, machine quilting would offer the stability you need. I love handquilting, so that's what I would do, but maybe big stitch quilting could also be an option.

I would machine quilt.

Baby quilts get a lot of laundering and abuse. Machine quilting would give the fabric more support. You don't necessarily have to stitch on every single hex. You could do a FMQ stencil. Please post pics when you are finished.

Good luck! Love to see pictures!

"I don't think tying would look weird, but maybe the fabric might be a little fragile for tying. " My thoughts as well.

But I would advise against machine quilting. IMO hand quilting is what is traditional for these kinds of quilts, although if it was a new top, tying would be OK too. You don't necessarily have to quilt around each little hexagon, I have done them with less quilting.

I received a quilt like that for my first child. It was green, white, blue and yellow pastels. (Typical baby boy colors.) The quilter tied small ribbons in the center of each hexagon. Blue of course. She also took a stitch in the middle of each bow to secure the tie. It was beautiful. He still has it and has used it for all 9 of his children. Hand stitched and still going strong.

I tied a GFG due to arthrites and poor eyesite! It worked out well. I used embrodery floss and matched the floss color to each hex. Am getting ready to pin baste another and will do the same thing. A photo of mine is in the gallery. Queen size.

What is a FMQ stencil? I will definitely post some pictures. I am going to try to get some before pictures also and post them soon.

I hadn't thought about this..do you mean that it would be fragile for actually doing it, or for holding up over time? I'm not against hand quilting completely but I don't think I could finish it in time. Also the person I am gifting it to really would treasure something done more traditionally as she herself prefers hand quilting to machine quilting. So that was tipping the scales over towards tying for me, knowing her preference. I really need to learn more about tying though...

I would really love to see that! I tried to find your photo but there were so many posts? Is there an easy way to find it? Do you remember what the title of the post was? I tried searching but couldn't find it--also though I am new here so I may not be looking in the right place :(

Thanks everyone for your feedback, I really appreciate it. I am wondering, if I don't stitch every hexagon (machine or by hand) what pattern would be appropriate, like every other hexagon? or just the centers of the flowers?

I should mention also I have one alteration I have to make, the center of the the quilt as I cut it has a really ugly colored "flower" its black and neon green plaid..ugh. So I cut another flower of hexagons from another part and I'm planning to applique the whole complex (like 20 hexagons) directly on top of the other one. I'll post pics soon.