More Repairs - Grandma Mary's Quilt

Grandma Mary, my Pa's mother, gave this quilt to Pa and Mom when they got married back in 1966.  It has been well-used and well-loved.  The blocks were hand-pieced, but the quilt was backed by machine, with no batting between.

I have assessed the damage in this vintage quilt and it is extensive. The back will have to be removed, it is stained, torn and damaged beyond use - the fabric **shatters** in places, so is not strong enough to anchor the quilt.  Some of the fabrics in the blocks are also shattered, which means I need to put fabric over it, to hold the rest of the block together. 

My goal is to save as much of the front of the quilt as possible. I will cover the torn fabric, either with full reproduction blocks, or only in places needed, like I did with my other Grandmother's quilt.  The red fabric is alternately strong in places, but in other places it is shattering, too - not sure why, but I'll do my best to fix it. 

 

 

The whole quilt. It is larger than lap robe, but smaller than twin.  I suspect it was made for a child, or one of those little homemade beds, before bed sizes existed. Although, with no batting, it might have been a pieced tablecloth, although my Mom never used is as such.

Whole pieces of the blocks are missing as you can see in this closeup - these will be replaced with fabric as close to the original colors as I can get. You can see the large tear in the red block.  I will not sew it together, but will cover it. If I sewed it back together, the seam would warp the block next to it, resulting in uneven sides.

It is interesting to me that the blocks in the middle are the most damaged. 

** shattered fabric - fabric that tears when touched or tugged.  It most often happens with silks and finer fabrics, but can happen to cottons and other blends when they are old, heavily used and/or washed repeatedly.

My parents are in Montana right now visiting their new great-grandson (my grand-nephew, whom I made the baby quilt for in a previous post), and Pa's birthday is on July 29th.  I hope to have this done so when they get back, I can give it back to him.

In other news, I hurt my back so Richard helped me with the canning, most of which gets given away at Christmas, and when people drop by, or when I need a quick gift:

23 pints of peach jam (already gave some away)
36 quarts of tomatoes
22 quarts of spaghetti sauce
(it would've been 23, but it smelled so good, it's supper tonight)