Old quilt, new tricks

I’ve finished the first one foot  by width of quilt section of the restoration.  Can you see my work from here?

How about from here?

It starts to show up as you move in.

This is my work.  I put in the tree and the lace hides a tear in the velvet.  I put in the clamshells along the left side.  This is where I started to learn that too much handling would do additional damage.  I’d read that everywhere I looked.  But, this is where I learned it.

And, this is my work.  I put in the red silk and did all the embroidery you see in this picture, except the little green thing in the lower left. 

 

I kept studying how to do the repairs and found one writer who said, instead of replacing the whole piece of shattered silk, to leave the beautiful embroidery and just replace the centers of a shattered piece of silk.  You can see that there’s a new piece of silk in the center of this section.  But, the old embroidery is still there, though kind of hidden by the threads of the shattered silk.  It’s clearer from directly above, but then the silk reflects the light and you can’t see the patch.

How about this one?  I put in the green silk on the left and added the narrow strip of lace to cover a tear in the red printed silk further down.  The previous restorer used a piece of blue velvet where the black patch is and it had shattered.  I removed it and beneath it was a black brocade that was shattered.  I covered the brocade with black silk and left the embroidery exposed along the bottom edge.  The red velvet has lost most of it’s fuzzy, but it’s still viable and therefore doesn’t get replaced.  But, it needed some embroidery to help with the transition, so I added that.  Very carefully. 

The blue stripe silk and the red silk with the ribbon embroidery below are both mine.  I did the embroidery before I sewed the patch on, so it didn’t add any stress to the quilt.  I’m just learning ribbon embroidery and this was leftover ribbon from a little kit that I did a couple weeks ago that was supposed to be one of those little embroidered picture “friend’s forever” things from Hobby Lobby.  But, it’s on a beautiful piece of green moire and is going to find a place as a repair patch later.

Here are some of the things I”m trying to save.  This is why it’s so important to remember that “less is more!”  The less stress I put on any section or piece, the longer that piece will last. 

There are lots of painted silks.

The blue bonnets along the side of this piece are mine.

And, there is gorgeous embroidery that I won’t even touch.  This piece is on a shattered velvet.  Not much I can do but save all the velvet I can.  The restorer I found most recently suggested just weaving new threads in about every eighth of an inch, left to right, not actually replacing the missing threads, but adding the stability of new thread to the threads that are left.  I’m still thinkin’ on that.

Today is bee and I’m back to machine applique.  I’ve ransacked every kitted up bit of sewing stuff around here for supplies to work on the crazy quilt and now I need to do something to make sure I’ve got all I’ll need at the meeting.

Be well.  Have a great weekend.  Sew, sew, sew.

Lane