Sewing With Nancy

Do you have a quilt treasure hidden away that's showing its age with frayed binding or fabric? During the Quilt Expo in Madison, Wisconsin, I interviewed a quilt restorer in order to share with you some of the techniques of preserving lightly tattered quilts. I hope you'll enjoy. With me today is Sandy Schweitzer, who is an AQS-certified judge, a quilt historian, and most importantly, Sandy, a quilt repairer. You save quilts. - Right. Thank you for being with us and sharing some ideas on how, if you have quilts at home that are not in the pristine shape, how to make them better and preserve them. Give them new life. - Give them new life. And the first quilt that we are sharing is something that you found and was-- you were surprised to find. Mm-hmm, I was. It's a double wedding ring crib quilt top from the 1930s. And then it's newly quilted, so it's a multigenerational quilt. And the most important thing that-- people may find a quilt top in their attic or at an antique shop and wondering how they should finish it. They can go ahead. - Yes, yes. It's not going to ruin it. Many people ask me, "Well, if I quilt it, will I destroy the value?" And, no, you won't. But you need to document things. Put a label on what you did. So this is, as I said, a multigenerational quilt, and then it indicates that information. And where-- you know, the "unknown," the maker, but, of course-- Right. You've made it a little bit better. So that's really important that you work with-- when you're making a quilt top and a quilt to document. Yes. Now, I have a quilt at home comparable to this. Oh, really? - Yes, I do. That has worn-out areas, and-- and this crazy quilt, just a little table topper... Or a doll quilt, yeah. A doll quilt, of course. With beautiful fabrics in it, but on this quilt, the binding gave way or deteriorated. And... You'll see that it was covered-- this is interesting. Tell us how you prevented this binding from raveling further. Well, you take illusion bridal tulle, which you can get in any fabric shop. Fabric store, mm-hmm. And you enclose it, and you do a running stitch, and then you just-- Tack it down. Take-- and then you just trim it off, uh, around both sides. And it-- that bridal illusion-- not netting, but bridal illusion, is very lightweight. And very fine. - Very fine. And even if some fabrics have just kind of-- or the stitching has deteriorated, you just go over it. Well, this would be a patch, and-- that the fabric had deteriorated. Actually, this is gone, since I-- Uh-huh. Sure. And so you would take fabric and not-- this is a quilt from, like, 1900, so I wouldn't use fabric from then, because this is what happens to it. Yeah, yeah, right. But you can make it look like it belongs. And-- exactly. And then you turn it under up to the embroidery. 'Cause you don't want to have to... Redo that. - Right. And then, of course, label it. - Yes. Now, Sandy, I know this quilt that they're looking at now is a Grandmother's Garden, and that quilt-- I've seen many of them in the unfinished state. Yes, and-- - The quilt top done but not-- And it's hand-pieced. It's from 1930s. And it's a scrappy quilt, and I had it longarm machine quilted because I wanted to show people that you can have it either hand quilted or machine quilted. And it's beautiful, you-- - Yeah, it is great. And you can have multigenerational. You can have multi-technique. And it's okay. - Yes, absolutely. Well, Sandy, thank you for being our guest. It's been enjoyable. It's been a pleasure. Thank you. And we'll talk to you again soon. Okay, thank you. Thanks again to Sandy Schweitzer for sharing her knowledge on quilt repair. If you'd like to re-watch this episode or past Sewing with Nancy programs, you can watch online at NancyZieman.com. You'll find a wealth of sewing, quilting, and embroidery programs there for you to enjoy and learn at your convenience. While you're there, why don't you sign up to receive my weekly blog posts? Or join me on Facebook and other social media platforms. Eileen Roche will be back next time for a second look at "Quilt with an Embroidery Machine." Thanks for joining me. Bye for now.