Past Glory

Sometimes a really, really damaged quilt is still incredibly beautiful.  This is one of those times. 

The quilt was sent to me for assessment and my thoughts about what to do with it.  It has much fabric damage, both faded colors and lots of tattered, dangling, and missing fabric.

I think the tan fabric was likely dyed with an early synthetic dye.  Fading of colors to this kind of tan, often called dun, was common with the experimental new dyes in the later part of the 1800s, as the fabric industry tried to find new dyes that were stronger colored and longer lasting than many plant dye recipes.  

 

The new synthetic reds and greens are particularly known to fade this way. 

The combination of plant dyed reds and greens on white for "best" quilts was quite popular in the middle decades of the 1800s.

The applique pattern, Prince's Feather, was a pattern quite likely to have been used for such a best quilt. 

Add these things up, and the now dun fabric seems likely to have been a new green dye from this era, along with an older technology plant dye called Turkey red.  

But the glory still is evident in the intricacy of the design, the precision of the delicate appliqué stitches around the complex feather shapes, and the tiny quilt stitches filling the spaces between.  

 

 

 

The quilt also serves as an example of the role of light fading as the fabric ages and weakens.  Someone at some point had basted one edge under, likely to get the quilt to fit in someplace it was to be displayed.  

 

 

In the photo below, there is a clear difference in fabric strength and survival between the folded back edge (bottom of photo) and the rest of the quilt (left edge and center of photo). 

 

So my conclusion is that there is still quite a bit to admire and save and learn from in this quilt, even though at first glance it's pretty sad.   There is not much to be done in terms of patching, because the damage is so widespread, and the exquisite stitchery would be covered up by the patching.  What I recommended was a bit of careful stitching, maybe the application of a fine netting, to hold some of the worst of the dangling damage in place.  

Also, opening out the folded edge to flatten the quilt again would be wise.  When fabric is folded over time like this has been, it is more likely to split and crack along the fold.  

So, in the end, I will say that this was a spectacular quilt.  Its glory is now partly a memory and partly still true.  And I hope that by showing it here, it will acquire some admirers and a longer life after all.