A New Old Quilt for Valentine's Day

It was last week when I completed the last stitch in the new binding around this restored 1880s quilt.  I've been celebrating by sleeping under it each night. Because of its wool batting, it's nice and warm.

Here's the finished quilt on the bed.  I made pillow cases out of muslin with a matching 2 inch red stripe to match.  I think I'll make another set using the green fabric.

When I first started working on this quilt many of the blocks looked like this, but this one was the worst.

So the next generation of the family knows what has happened to this quilt I printed a rather lengthy history on fabric and sewed it onto the back.  If you want to read what I said, it follows below:

Harvey Family

Red and Green Tulip Basket Quilt

85 x 102 inches

There are no family stories or oral history about this quilt, but there has been some discussion of who might be the original maker.  As a young girl I remember that this quilt was displayed on the brass bed in the bedroom on the main floor of the Harvey Cottage at Winona Lake, IN.  In the late 1960’s it was a beautiful quilt but in great need of repair.

In September of 2013 I began the task of repairing it. On January 2, 2015 I placed my last stitches in the binding. This was a labor of love.

The original white background fabric had beautiful hand stitching worth preserving, but the red and green fabrics were in terrible condition. The green had so many holes in it, I could just pinch and pull it off the quilt. I re-appliqued brand new matching red and green fabrics over each block and the outer border. 

There were numerous little holes in the white areas, both on the front and the back. I appliqued new muslin patches over these areas to give the quilt more stability. As I worked I marked the areas that needed to be re-quilted, and that was all stitched by hand. A new binding was sewn right over the original binding to protect the fragile edges. 

This quilt has now been transformed into a beautiful piece, the layout of the blocks, the hand quilting and the contrast of the fabrics is stunning. I’m glad that I was able to preserve it for future family members.

A quilt historian told me that this tulip quilt was probably made in the 1880s. I’d like to think that my Great Grandmother Nancy C. Harvey (1870-1959) sat around a quilt frame with her four sisters: Belle, Alice, Lida and Madge Culbertson, to finish it for her wedding in 1891. There were many hands that stitched on this quilt, some were the original stitchers and some probably sat on the porch to make repairs in more recent years.

Inside the quilt is wool batting and I know that they had sheep on the Culbertson Farm in southern Indiana. The wool fibers had to be carefully placed on the underside of the top to give it loft and warmth.

Ann Harvey Fahl,

Quilt artist and family historian

Happy Valentine's Day.

A Crisis Helps to Work in the White Spaces

Much of my concentration has been on replacing the red and green fabric applique. Now I'm realizing that I need to work on some of the weak spots on the background as I notice them.  In an earlier post I recommended marking the areas that need repair as I go.  This is a good idea.  But if I just mark them, they will all be waiting for me when I'm done with the red and green restoration.  Just working on white will be boring.

So as I write this, I've completed 8 1/2 applique blocks, it's looking beautiful. I've decided to ocasionally let myself repair a rip in the white space. This mixes up the different tasks to vary the job a little bit.

Outburst of Joy, (c) 1984 by Ann Fahl.  My apologies, this is a scan of an old photo, it's the best I can do.

Many years ago I entered a very colorful wallhanging into a local quilt show.  It was a compass style piece with an interesting border, all hand quilted.  This quilt was titled "Outburst of Joy" won a prize, a ribbon was pinned onto the quilt. At the conclusion of the show the ribbon was lying on the floor and there was a 3 cornered tear in the black background of the quilt!


The show organizers were most apologetic and were horrified that this had happened. When they pointed it out to me, I looked at it, and realized that it was small, a tear of about 1/2 inch in two different directions. Fortunately it was contained within a small triangular section of straight line quilting; and I realized that I could applique a matching piece of fabric over the tear. I did this the minute I got the quilt home.

With little tiny stitches, I appliqued a piece of black just inside of the hand quilting stitches.  It fit inside the quilting lines, perfectly.  Because it was a perfect match, nobody except me knew that it had been patched.  This quilt has been sold, long ago. If the owner is reading this blog, this is the first they will know of this affair! 

This is exactly what I will do to the areas in the white background of the tulip quilt as I find and mark them. I will cut a patch of the well washed muslin, and applique it within the quilting lines.

The split in the fabric was marked with thread.

A patch has been cut and appliqued within the quilting lines.

If the damaged area is larger, I will applique a much larger patch, yet inside of the quilting pattern, and quilt over the entire repaired area to match the original.

The patch has been quilted, so the quilting pattern is continuous.  This helps to camouflage the repair.

These photos do look pretty awful, but you are only looking at a small area of the quilt.  When you open the entire quilt up, and you see all the patterns, these patches almost disappear. It's difficult for me to find them. Quilt conservators might use a sheer netting for these repairs. I am intending on using this quilt daily, so I want to repair the weak spots with something that will withstand a little more wear and tear.  My new patches provide new strength to the area.

Still sewing.
Ann