Antique Crazy Quilt Repair Begins

First, I'd like to say thank you to everyone who left me comments regarding my Galena and Field Of Dreams photos. I'm so happy to know that you enjoyed seeing them. Thank you everyone! I love having comments to read even though I don't always reply to them. It's not that I don't want to, it's a matter of time. You know me, I'm always into a lot of different things!

Today, I'm back in the real world and ready to start the repair on my 2 antique crazy quilt projects. I cleaned them both yesterday. What a tedious project that was!

To clean them, I put several layers of cheesecloth over the hose of my vacumm cleaner and worked over the quilts doing a "set & lift" motion. After several hours and quite a bit of cheesecloth (yes, you wouldn't believe how dirty they were), I'm happy to say that they are clean. Or, at least as clean as I can get them.

The first repair that I will make is on my commission piece:



I'm going to start by repairing the beaded area. The beading was worked on netted lace and then sewn into the quilt. I have some beads that are a close match to the antique ones on this quilt so I think I'll be able to replace the missing ones. My plan is to anchor all of the beads to the quilt. Remember, when I complete this, I'll be adding a new back and binding to it so I'll be working through everything that's all ready here.

I plan to meet with the quilts owner on Friday to discuss my ideas with her regarding more embellishing and embroidery. Basically, I want to share my ideas with her first before I go any further on it. So once I have the beading repaired, I'll put this one to the side and figure out what to do with mine.

To be honest, mine feels extremely overwhelming. There's just so much to repair on it. I honestly don't even know where to start. Scott reminded me last night that I don't have to look at the entire "staircase". I just need to take one step at a time. I'll just have to pick a place to start and work from there.

Tomorrow, I will have some interesting information for you on my quilt. My friends Susan and Bennie shared some history with me that you might find interesting!