pittsburgpam

I bought these two tops years ago at Salvation Army. Very scrappy quilts with an old-fashined look. The square patch is a mixture of hand and machine pieced and the borders are all sewn by hand. The problem with that one is that the borders have a lot of gathers and puckers and the edge border has so much that it almost has a ruffled look.

I would prefer a different border color than pink and there is no way this could be quilted and look halfway decent. If it's ever going to be completed something has to be done with it.

Moonpi

I don't think either one would be easy to quilt, but perfect for tying. A thick batting would fill out some of the ridges and probably look like it was planned that way.

Blue Bell

I have a couple, as well, made my my husband's aunt's grandmother, in the 30's. I have been planning on tying them. They were given to me about 10 years ago so I better get started.

mrsj82

I agree. I think tying it would be the best way to go. You might be able to make it look purposeful (the gathers that is) by doing that. I know I've been able to cover some of my "oops" with tying rather than quilting.

Good luck!

Shemjo

For the pink one, if the borders are ruffly, take them off! Then you can either re attatch them correclty ( measure through the center of the quilt to find the correct length and width) or change them!
The group I hand quilt with have done hand quilting on similar quilts with little difficulty. :lol:

ScubaK

I would take the borders off and do them correctly...
maybe they are wrinkley because of the bias...
But seriously...I would just get some Warm and Natural batting...a similiar cotton backing and tie them both....probably every 4 inches and do the knots securely...
They would be good as new and what a great find!
Kirsten

c2cd2008

Great finds. I get toppers like this sometimes too in estate sales and yard sales. Sometimes you just have to rip some stitches and either replace or fix them the right way and other times I have actually cut up toppers that were not that great and made iether throws or pillows out of them so they still get some life.

gcathie

All I can add is good luck in whatever you decide to do...it will be better than nothing....

Stitching4Fun

When I first saw the quilt, I thought the gatherings were intentional. It is all over the quilt. So maybe that is how it was meant to be when it was made. Maybe for a little girl's room and the more ruffles, the better? Plus it is pink!

Then I read what others wrote and thought that maybe I was the wrong one. Everyone has different tastes and ideas, so who is to say this quilt was not made that way on purpose?

The squares don't look ruffled so if you are that dissatisfied with the look, why not take the whole thing apart, save the squares and put new sashing between them. Make a whole new quilt out of them? I know it will be alot of work, but if you don't like it, will you use it?

Just my two cents worth.
Barb

sandpat

I guess what you need to do depends on what you want to do with them when you are finished. That will tell you how much time to invest. They look to be great finds though!