redoing a tied quilt
 

I have a tied quilt that's around 30 yrs old. Its in good shape except the backing is getting bad. Can I untie it then retie it?

Sure you can!!! I don't see where you would have any problem at all.

Someone gave me a tied quilt and I removed the ties and put on a new backing, quilted it in my longarm, the most tedious part was removing the old binding. It should be straightforward enough to do.

Just make sure there aren't any holes where the ties used to be. My son had a tied quilt that he used to death. It was one of the first ones I made. Most of the ties ripped out of the back and some out of the front. The polyester batting was matted and needed replacement. After some attempts at repairing the top, I sadly just threw it away.

I have undone a tied quilt and then requilted it on my machine and it is holding up great. The quilt was about 20 years old when I did it. Since it was birthed, and not well done, in my early days of quilting, it was a joy to do it right.

A friend was trying to take off the binding of a quilt at our monthly sew-in. I told her, "Why don't you just cut it off?" She hesitated for about one and one half seconds, whipped out her ruler and cutter, and that binding was gone in about 10 minutes or less. At that stage of a quilt, I don't anyone is going to worry about a few lost points.

When I was first practicing my long arm skills, I bought several tied quilts from the thrift store and simply cut off the ties and quilted by machine. One of them is on our main bed, good thing because the dog we have managed to chew some additional big holes in it and I would have been really made had it been one of my quilts instead of a $5 thrift store find. We've largely broken the dog of his chewing issues but still don't trust a good top on that bed.

Yes, sometimes holes are left, especially if tied with yarn. They will do less damage/be less of an issue of a back that rots out.

And yes, I've just sliced off old binding before too.

I recently redid a tied quilt. It was one of the first quilts I made and the border was wearing thin with small holes in some areas. I cut off the ties, replaced the border, put new backing on it and had a friend machine quilt it.{cheap} Turned out nicely. Also, redid one I made for daughter years ago. Told her to throw it away and I would make her a new one but she loved it so I just alppliqued little hearts over the holes that were bad, changed backing and had it machine quilted. They do seem to last longer being quilted.

I would just cut off binding and replace it. I sew bindings on by machine and make sure they never come off.