Quilters and collectors across the globe often scour antique shops, flea markets, and even garage sales for quilt tops to add to their collections. Unfortunately, not every quilt top that survived the early half of the century is valuable. Some are in such poor condition that they are better off quilted and used, while others may be better and more valuable preserved as tops only.
If you aren't sure whether to quilt those tops or leave them "as is", quilt historian Barbara Brackman shares these ideas for protecting quilt tops while still enjoying their beauty and grace:
Sew a sleeve to the back of the quilt top just as you would a completed quilt. Use a double-folded sleeve so that the top is protected from the hanging mechanism. Use cotton fabric and thread along with single or double-fold binding and bind the raw edges by hand to prevent them from pulling and fraying. Hang the top for all to enjoy.
To give a fragile quilt top added strength, mount a piece of backing fabric to the top. Base the edges of the quilt top to the backing fabric with stitches that are about 1/4-inch long on the front of the quilt, but are about 1 inch long on the backing side. Then bring the backing fabric around to the front edge of the quilt top to cover the quilt's raw edges. Tack in place using as few stitches as possible.
Donate an antique quilt top in good condition to a museum that has a good textile collection. Curators are often interested in older quilt tops as historical records of past techniques, fabrics, and patterns.
Showing posts with label stitching. Show all posts
Showing posts with label stitching. Show all posts
Friday, June 25, 2010
Saturday, June 19, 2010
Design Inspiration Is All Around You
From your newly planted garden to the imprint on your new "green" grocery bag, design inspiration is everywhere if you take the time to open your eyes to the possibilities.
Magazines and catalogs are one obvious source of inspiration. But if you're on a shopping spree, check out the illustrations on greeting cards. Don't miss the store window display, or even the greenery in the aisles. The colors a store uses in its logo can give you a new perspective on color value and hue (they probably paid a design professional lots of money to arrive at those colors--use them to inspire your next quilt!)
And as Fathers Day approaches, if you plan to visit a Museum, take along a camera or sketchpad. Many old items have wonderful designs etched into them. Create a sketch or do a "rubbing". To do a rubbing, place a blank piece of paper over the design, then lightly rub over the design with a pencil or even with a crayon with the paper sleeve removed.
Keep a small notebook in your bag and make a note, or snap a photo any time you are inspired!
Keep your eyes open and get inspiration from everywhere, you never know what will inspire you.
Magazines and catalogs are one obvious source of inspiration. But if you're on a shopping spree, check out the illustrations on greeting cards. Don't miss the store window display, or even the greenery in the aisles. The colors a store uses in its logo can give you a new perspective on color value and hue (they probably paid a design professional lots of money to arrive at those colors--use them to inspire your next quilt!)
And as Fathers Day approaches, if you plan to visit a Museum, take along a camera or sketchpad. Many old items have wonderful designs etched into them. Create a sketch or do a "rubbing". To do a rubbing, place a blank piece of paper over the design, then lightly rub over the design with a pencil or even with a crayon with the paper sleeve removed.
Keep a small notebook in your bag and make a note, or snap a photo any time you are inspired!
Keep your eyes open and get inspiration from everywhere, you never know what will inspire you.
Thursday, May 27, 2010
I Ran Out of Batting!
You will run out of batting before you run out of quilt at least three times every year.
Okay, this was just made up. And if it has never happened to you, let's hope we didn't mess with your "mojo" by mentioning it. But many longarm quilters have suffered the dreaded "two-inches-too-short" dilemma, discovering that they have more quilt than batting at the bottom edge.
The best way to handle this is to avoid the situation in the first place by opening up your batting piece, folding it in half and then in half once again. Do the same with your quilt top, matching the folds with those of your batting. Check all the raw edges to be sure you have plenty of batting extending past the quilt's outer perimeter.
If Murphy has struck and you've discovered that you're short of batting once you've begun, you can still salvage the project with a little extra work. When you reach the edge of the batting where you need to add an extra piece, overlap a new piece of batting on top of the current batting. Be sure the overlap is at least six inches. You won't need to remove the quilt from your frame.
Use a scissors to cut a serpentine path through both layers of batting at once (be careful not to cut the quilt layers or your canvas leaders!) Remove the scrap pieces and then whipstitch the pieces together. This curved "seam" in your batting is easier to disguise as the piece rolls into the quilt, and is more likely to be caught with your quilting stitches to prevent it from separating when the quilt is used.
Okay, this was just made up. And if it has never happened to you, let's hope we didn't mess with your "mojo" by mentioning it. But many longarm quilters have suffered the dreaded "two-inches-too-short" dilemma, discovering that they have more quilt than batting at the bottom edge.
The best way to handle this is to avoid the situation in the first place by opening up your batting piece, folding it in half and then in half once again. Do the same with your quilt top, matching the folds with those of your batting. Check all the raw edges to be sure you have plenty of batting extending past the quilt's outer perimeter.
If Murphy has struck and you've discovered that you're short of batting once you've begun, you can still salvage the project with a little extra work. When you reach the edge of the batting where you need to add an extra piece, overlap a new piece of batting on top of the current batting. Be sure the overlap is at least six inches. You won't need to remove the quilt from your frame.
Use a scissors to cut a serpentine path through both layers of batting at once (be careful not to cut the quilt layers or your canvas leaders!) Remove the scrap pieces and then whipstitch the pieces together. This curved "seam" in your batting is easier to disguise as the piece rolls into the quilt, and is more likely to be caught with your quilting stitches to prevent it from separating when the quilt is used.
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