In 2017, I made a quilt for my son to replace the quilt I made for him when he went to college 12 years ago. He brought it home and asked me to do some repairs. So many seams came apart as seen in the pictures below.
I
don't remember what thread I used. I will be very disappointed if it turns out to be one of my expensive threads. On top of that I have to figure out
how I will fix this. If anyone has any ideas and has done this before please let me know. I still have some time before I start working on it.
Right now I plan to requilt the whole thing with a thicker thread. I'll do top stitch on every seam, be it ribbed or not. I liked the 3-ply 100% cotton that I used to quilt my sister's quilt. I think I'll use that.
Have a great quilty day.....
Today link to To-Do Tuesday
Oh dear! I once did a sort of very small type of hemming stitch to fix a quilt someone had given me to quilt & while it was on the machine I noticed some of the seams were like that. I didn't want to take it off, so managed the repairs as I rolled it forward each time. Another thing you could try is stitching on the very edge of each seam for your re-quilting. Do you get what I mean? Hope it all goes well without too many frustrations. Take care & stay safe.
ReplyDeleteHi Margo! Gosh, I have never encountered that issue. Although, my nephew asked me to fix his quilt and it was in tatters so he got a new quilt out of the deal. It sounds like your plan will fix it right up though. Thanks for linking up today and good luck with that project. ~smile~ Roseanne
ReplyDeleteI like your plan of top-stitching all the seams. That ought to do it!
ReplyDeleteI feel your pain and wish you well in re-quilting, which is a great idea to secure those seams. I've only had issues with my hand-stitched bindings, which resulted in my having to machine sew bindings to the back. Which I don't like!
ReplyDeleteAre you planning to take it completely apart, or take out all the quilting, or ? I think I would do a hand stitch to reconnect the pieces. Or is the fabric in the seam allowance gone? I've caught several seams in new quilts where only a thread or two of one of the fabrics was caught in the seam. I always try to correct it before I get any further. If it is the thread that has given up you might need to evaluate how old the thread is you are using. I wish I could say I date every spool of cotton thread I bring in but I don't. But it would help in terms of weeding out old thread. Good luck with you fixing. A last thought. You might ask him if he is hooking the bottom of the quilt under his feet and yanking it up. (Ask me how I know this one!) It may be the quilt is being pulled in a way we wouldn't normally do.
ReplyDeleteHi, Margo. I fix vintage quilts for clients, and I have LOTS of tricks up my sleeve that might help you. The easiest, most invisible repair for popped seams would be hand stitching the open seams closed in matching, lightweight thread, the way you'd do needle turn appliqué, as Bonnie suggested. You could also slide a 1/4" wide strip of double sided fusible web into the hole, just to the seam allowance, and then use your iron to fuse the hole shut. That may be enough to hold the repair if you're also planning to add more quilting that will reinforce the repaired seams and further secure them. As far as figuring out why this happened and how to prevent it in the future: It's hard for me to tell from your photos, but might your piecing stitch length have been a little longer than necessary? A shorter piecing stitch length, in the neighborhood of 1.5 to 2.0 on my Bernina, makes for a stronger piecing seam than the default straight stitch length of 2.5. The other consideration is that the more quilting goes into a quilt, the less stress your piecing seams will be exposed to over the life of the quilt. That's why the vintage quilts that come to me in the worst condition are the tied quilts. Quilting stitches that go through all three layers of the quilt "marry" the quilt top to the strength and stability of the batting and backing layers, but in a tied or lightly quilted quilt, the top layer of piecing is separate enough that sometimes the quilt is grabbed, tugged, pulled only by the top layer, and that can lead to popped seams. Unless you used really old, weak thread that had deteriorated over time before you put it into your quilt, I don't think your piecing thread was the culprit. I think that there probably wasn't enough quilting for the intended use as a bed quilt, and perhaps your stitch length may have been a little too long. Either way, your plan of adding more quilting will resolve the problems so your son can get many more years of enjoyment and use out of this quilt.
ReplyDeleteYour idea to top-stitch all the seams looks good to me, it will be easier than re-doing all the seams.
ReplyDeleteMaybe the opportunity to quilt it with designs that inspire you?
Thank you for sharing, and linking up.
I second the idea of a needle turn applique stitch and then more quilting on top. What a compliment from your son it is to see how much he loves this quilt.
ReplyDeleteI'm not sure if you know that you're a non-reply blogger. I hope you come back to visit. Thanks for your wonderful comments. Yes, he loves his quilt.
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