Finished refurbishing the antique 150 year old quilt
 

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I am going to warn everyone, this will be a photo heavy and multiple posting thread. With the restrictions of photo size, the website only allows me to load a few photos per thread, so here is the vintage/antique quilt I refurbished this winter.
I was hired to restore this for a lady who inherited it from a family member. It was her great, great grandmother's, who made it mid 1800's. I had permission to cut and disassemble it, I knew doing this would devalue the quilt, but she explained the condition it was on was of no value to her anyway. It is obviously a crazy quilt, and of course made from old clothes, curtains, sheets, and anything else fabric to add to a block. It is all hand sewn, and all turned edge piecing. The first photo is how I received it, the bright fabric was added by the ladies grandmother, I am guessing by the print, sometime 70's-80's, to help protect the tattered original topping, I cut it back to reveal the crazy quilt blocks. I then cut apart the layers, I am pretty sure the "batting" has horse hair in it. The backing is linen, and actually was on not to bad of shape. I then cut out each block.

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THe second photo shows before and after of the blocks. Several pieces of each block were very tattered. I used civil war replica fabric to cut out each shape, then I raw edge appliqued them onto the blocks. The first photo shows this process. One I salvaged all the blocks I could, I ended up with 24. Some of block were so damaged, it would have been more new fabric, then the original pieces.

Wow!!! That is quite an undertaking. You are doing a wonderful job. As bad a shape as it was in, I am impressed with how good it is turning out. I'm not sure I would have had the patience to deal with it.

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Here it is during the layering process. I added three borders, the first border I'd the original linen backing with all it's patina,the middle border is pieced using backing and using both original and new fabric, and the final border is civil war reproduction. I wanted the final border to be new fabric, I was afraid washing it, which the lady said she wanted to be able to do, if I left the final border with some of the original fabric, it would fray over time, so that is why I finished the borders with a reproduction. I stipple quilted the entire quilt, era correct, and it holds down the original pieces well.

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Here is the finished, washed quilt. It finished twin size.

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The left over blocks, badly damaged blocks, first photo, I added a few pieces to and cut out these ornaments. The lady who inherited the quilt has several siblings, and I made the ornaments as a way for her to share the quilt with her family, so they too could have a piece of their great great grandmother's quilt.
It was so much fun refurbishing the antique quilt, my allergies got the best of me at times, I don't think it had ever seen a modern washing machine. I am sure it will carry on on the family for another 150 years.

What an amazing pice of work you have done, it really is a museum pice reconstruction, if I was the owner I would hang in on the wall and never wash it again.

Extraordinary work. Just wow! Thoughtful gifts for the siblings…so cool…

You did a wonderful job saving and restoring that quilt. Was nice seeing the process you went
through to do it.

Talk about a patience of love. You truly did a wonderful job.