tropit

The other day, my DH brought up an old quilt top from the shed. It was something that I bought with my own grandmother at an antique shop in the late 1960s. I had no idea that it had been stashed away all this time. The quilt top is a large, lap quit, "Grandmother's Flower Garden" design, all hand-stitched, with pretty, feminine colors. It's in pretty good shape. I'd like to make some minor repairs and put an edge on it. How is this done on a "hexi-quilt" in order to even out the edges? Thanks!

cashs_mom

I think that purists applique the edges onto a border to preserve the shape of the hexies. I've made a few hexie quilts and not being a purist, I just cut them off straight and bind.

Iceblossom

We've had some discussions on this before -- I'll have to do some searching on them. I think a lot of these quilts end up unfinished just because of the edges. And also because as a hand sewn/as you go project, they often have way too many blocks.

The band method Cash's Mom mentioned is a common finish. Helps support all that flex from the hexies.

For my $12?? handsewn thrift store top, I have decided I will drive myself crazy with binding, and while I will cut off the small points of the hexes, I will maintain the large hex shapes. It was huge and misshapen, I had to take off about 16 units? I have designed a quilting pattern and have the back. It will be one of my medium-hard long arm quilting practice projects.

Onebyone

If cutting off straight I would put a strip of light weight sewable fusible stabilizer on the edge on the back. This would keep the hexies on the edge from coming apart. if you are going to keep it for value then do nothing to it.

Iceblossom

Looking for the threads, I found a mention of this in the Photo Albums:
https://www.quiltingboard.com/member...bums16942.html

There are some more threads, but this one had the link to the album and some good finishes:
https://www.quiltingboard.com/member...bums16942.html

In vintage quilts I have seen a knife edge, where each small hex is preserved. Crazy stuff!

dunster

That's a very special quilt. I would take the time to face it. This video is an excellent tutorial on how to do that.

cashs_mom

That's a good point. I just ran a line of stay stitching along the edge. It kept things in place and from stretching. Worked great.

tropit

These are all great ideas. I'll be sure to check out the links. Thanks everyone. I'm glad I asked first, before I started headlong into it. I think I need to do more research before I mess with it. The quilt is very pretty and I'd like to preserve it and be faithful to it's history.

bearisgray

Sometimes people would add a half-hexi to fill in the gaps and "straighten the outside edge."

Others have done the very narrow binding around the edges,

It causes me pain to lop off part of a design when something could be done to keep it intact.

tropit

I like the half-hexi idea. I could do it in white, which would set off the other colors nicely. I know that this is a very long project. There's the repairs, the edging, the hand quilting, but I do love the quilt and the winters are long and rainy, so what the heck.