Quiltangelady

I have been asked to fix a 50 year old tied quilt. The binding is frayed. The batting has become scrunched up in all four corners for some reason. I was thinking of sewing new binding over the old. I have seen where some cut off the old binding on a quilted quilt but this one is tied. Wondering if my plan will work so that I can use the old binding as added support.

Iceblossom

Unless you make the binding pretty wide, I would probably cut off the old binding. If it is going to noticeably clip off star or other points, I would probably attempt to take the binding off instead of cutting... but I can tolerate a few issues on a rescue project. Otherwise you are likely to be pretty thick and lumpy around the edges. Plus, cutting would allow you to fix the batting pile up.

When I was first learning to machine quilt, I took more than one tied quilt from the thrift store and worked with it in various manners, when and how I took out the ties, did projects on both a domestic and a long arm. If it had a nice finished edge, I usually left that intact and left the ties until I was done quilting if I could, or otherwise take out sections at a time in the area I was quilting.

Mkotch

If the corners are really tattered, you might have to cut them off. If so, I'd cut the old binding off and round the corners for a new look. Funny this should come up today as I'm about to help a non-quilting friend tie a quilt. She made the top years ago and says she wants to finish it. I suggested she send it to be long armed, but she wants to claim she made it all by herself. I'm curious about what shape it will be in but am willing to help.

LGJARN52

I have memories of fixing a "family heirloom" quilt for my husband when we were still dating, Made by his grandmother (she was not a sewer) out of polyester squares & chunks of flannel, lined with not one but two wool blankets. The polyester squares were not all cut evenly and if one was too big she simply pleated the bigger one to fit the smaller one. It was a tied blanket and so heavy that I had to get three tables to hold the weight while I repaired it. Made with love from his Grandmother. We still have it and if the winter ever hits -60 degrees we'll be snuggy warm using it.

Onebyone

I have sewed new binding over old a lot of times. Sure saves a lot of time. I have changed my mind on binding color even on a new quilt and sewed a new one over it. If the owner wanted the bunched batting taken out then I would cut off the old binding undo some of the ties and smooth it out.

QuiltE

@Quiltangelady ... Lots of ideas from others. And lots of ways you can work on this quilt. I hope that you ENJOY the process and the quilt owner appreciates what you are about to do for them.

I'm going to offer some thoughts from a different perspective. You have been asked to work on a treasured heirloom. Now, that may seem a bit assumptive of me, but your being asked to work on a 50yo quilt, absolutely infers such.

Be sure to discuss what can/cannot be done to the quilt, with the owner before you begin.
Point out the pros/cons/risks/options, of what you are suggesting to do.
Remember, your hesitancies towards a method ... may be totally acceptable to them.
And may be exactly what they want.
No, you don't need the person with you side-by-side for every step.
Just be sure that it is all discussed up front, before they leave, and you move ahead.

Let them decide ... and in doing so, once again, you can remind/clarify any potential downfalls of the method that they choose for you to do. And if you have concerns after you start, be sure to talk with them again.

I'm telling you this from experience ... I have been helping a friend with some of her family quilts and other textile heirlooms. She is not a quilter, but has firm ideas. Not way out ideas, but knows what she wants; and knows what is not acceptable to her. For her, she tends to want to keep things as close to the original as possible, even if it leaves an imperfect area. She can be quite OK with that imperfect area, knowing that it's had a 100 yrs (or whatever!) of wear and tear, whereas many others would not be.

As we consider options, I'm always asking her, "are you willing to accept ... ?". Or saying, "if we do this, then this ..... may happen." I am always clarifying the meaning of her thoughts/ideas, rather than being assumptive. Not being a quilter, she may use the wrong technical term ... and sometimes, if I took it literally, OMG, what a different end result we would have!!

Before you cut ... be sure to ask!! It may be obvious to you to cut it, but for the owner, it may be too upsetting to their sentimentality! Examples in your case, re the potential cutting off the binding edge, rounding the corners, etc. For my friend, she was OK with cutting off the quilt edge with the binding. But I already know that if rounded corners were suggested, it would be a no-way-jose moment ... as that is taking the quilt away from how it had been made originally by her GGM! The quilt had been totally hand-stitched, including both stages of the binding process. We had the discussion, and she was OK with machine stitching to attach, but hand stitching for the finish, and she wanted to do the hand-stitching , as a tie to her GGM.

Now that was a challenge!! ... as she is left-handed and had never sewn binding on. We started with a large mug rug, for each of us, so she could see how I did it, and reverse to left-handedness! The straight edge wasn't so bad, but corners, translated to left hand? We had a few good laughs as we worked on our mug rugs. She left with a corner pinned, so that she could see how to do it, when she worked on her real quilt! I was SO proud of her, at how fast she worked her way around the quilt ... and how good of a job she did.

Moral of the story ... we're still friends!!
So I guess, it worked for us!

@Quiltangelady ... Good Luck to you and your friend as you go through this process.
For sure, ENJOY the process ... and I hope both of you are more than happy with the end results.

bearisgray

What QuiltE and others have said !!!!!!!!!!!!

A lot of non-sewers have NO idea of what will and won't work.
Or what the repair person is willing to do or can do.

Did you discuss payment? If so, quote high - because almost every repair/redo takes longer than anticipated and there are usually a few glitches that show up during the process.

Or is this going to be a "labor of love"? In which case, the person better be pretty near and dear.

But - this is not my monkey nor my circus. I've just gotten burned on a couple of repair jobs and did not enjoy the scorch.

A smallish repair - if the rest of the item is in fairly good condition - makes sense.
But when something is literally in shreds - pretty hard to make it "like new" - or even - "safe to wash" - this is a project I would flee from.

Thebabyquiltlady

I have fixed many of my Grandmother's quilts when the binding started to fray. Besides cutting off the old binding, I left that in place, sewed a new and wider binding to cover not only the older one but a bit of the quilt itself. Once finished, I meandered quilted the binding to secure it more firmly.