illinois

When my former in-laws passed away 40 years ago, we found a hand-stitched quilt top that we have no idea who the creator was but assume it might have been one of my husband's grandmothers. It is at least queen size and postage-stamps that finish at 1". A number of the pieces have now come loose but I'd like to divide this to pass to our 2 daughters. I'm not so interested in restoration as I am in preservation. I will hand quilt this. I'm debating--should I use cotton batting because of the age? (I usually use polyester batting in the new quilts I make.) Should I leave the loose/frayed blocks and simply quilt them down? This is big enough that, even using 1/2 of it, I could cut the top down and harvest usable blocks to fix the ones that are damaged. And then comes the thing about adding borders simply to make the piece less fragile in handling. Will appreciate all thoughts.