A bought quilt

I'm not a collector of bought quilts, I don't go out of my way to look for them, generally I prefer making them. But if I see a second hand one that's gorgeous in some way, and not a large amount of money, then I do find it hard to resist!

This quilt was displayed on a chair outside a lovely shop on a sunny day. I was walking along on the other side of the street but I spotted it out of the corner of my eye and the colours called me over. And then I couldn't resist!

The shop lady thought it dated back to the 30's, I haven't got a clue, but it is obviously quite old from the style of some of the fabrics.

Lots of really pretty fabrics, but I find some of the placement a bit bizarre, there are 'clumps' of the same fabrics rather than any attempt to give the quilt a good balance with the fabric placement. I think probably whoever made it cut and pieced scraps as they had scraps to use and that the quilt built up over time in this way rather than being pieced all in one go.

It's not particularly big and it's slightly strange in that it's hand pieced hexagons on both sides with no wadding or anything in between and no quilting holding the 2 layers together. It seems to be held together purely by the blue binding, which is a quaint frill.



Blue frill for binding

 There are quite a few areas that are damaged, and somebody has already tried (not very well) to mend a couple of these.

Some torn fabric

I don't really know what to do with the damaged areas. I don't want to change it in any radical way, I definitely don't want to add any different fabric to it  but I'm not sure how effective just trying to 'darn' it will be. But it's not something that's overly worrying me. The damage doesn't spoil the quilt for me, it's all part of its history and beauty, I just want to try and preserve it a bit better if I can. I think I might end up hanging it up on a wall somewhere which hopefully will keep the delicate, worn fabrics a bit safer for longer.

Back tomorrow with a very quick, thrifty make, Sally.

PS If you felt like having a go at making a mini quilt after seeing yesterday's lovely 'Doll's Quilt Wall' on my Pinterest board, then there's lots more mini quilt inspiration on my board here, Mini Quilt Inspiration. I'm going to have to not look at these too much though because for one thing my wall isn't big enough for all the ideas I love on here and for another thing I'd really like a few of the ideas to be personal to me and my family. Pinterest can be too full of lovely things sometimes!