I spied this very interesting quilt at the flea market. The fabrics were clearly vintage. The dealer gave it to me, as I had bought quite a few things from him and it was shabby and did smell musty. I looked it over and saw that the edges of the quilt were already heavily frayed. There was also something very lumpy in the feel of the quilt. It was beyond the point of usability as a quilt. So I decided I was going to hand wash it and remove the fabric on each side for upcycling. After washing, the vintage quilt was dried carefully in position so it would not be strained in any way. Hand washing helped, it now smelled clean.
I looked at the fabric and the little ties made from squares of wool or velvet. They so resembled little flowers, as the cord that held them in place was green and the tying resembled stamens on a real flower. I went about carefully removing the dozens of ties so as not to damage the fabric and began cutting one side of the quilt to remove the reddish fabric.
Under this fabric was the original quilt back in a brown calico that was very delicate and finely shredded in the most interesting way – falling apart in a structured way no doubt due to the tying method. Under that was what we determined to be cotton batting.
This fabric was sewn with a machine. Taking it apart was messy. I did this work outside because stray blobs of the batting were rolling out as I worked.
I then flipped the vintage quilt over to access the orange and blue flower patterned fabric side to cut away. Under that fabric there was a very thin and faded layer of a floral fabric that seemed odd to me as it had almost no pattern to it. I cut that layer off to see what lay underneath.
The original quilt top was underneath! It was long panels of 3 different colors and scales of design fabrics. The most amazing thing of all was it was hand tied with the same technique but with two sizes of contrasting circles also tied with a fabulous cording and resembled flowers with their stamens!
Was the quilt refurbisher the same person or was it a descendant who valued the work of her predecessor? I love that they too enjoyed the hand tying method. I sent an image of the “flower” to a friend and her quilting group. None had ever seen that technique before. I was thinking perhaps the cord is a very heavy colored lace making cord which may have fallen out of favor. It was very strong as it held this quilt in its two periods of use over many years!
The vintage fabric from the top and the back were successfully removed and have been added to my fabric stash for use on a future project. The rest of the quilt will go to textile recycling. But what stays with me is what a delightful mystery was solved, untying all those layers of what must have been a much beloved vintage quilt at one time.
