Well, Brian, I don't think I quite go along with your philosophy (or
only in part). However, you will only be satisfied with the result if
you do what you really want to do.

I have a couple of suggestions:
one is to cut out a few squares of the colours that you suggested for
each of the three repair methods, and pin them in place. Then leave the
quilt 'around' for a few days (each) to see what you prefer.

Second is to pass on the principle that English Heritage go by at the
moment: if someone is 'repairing' a very old property, which can't be
remedied by 'like for like' materials, then the repair should be in
stark contrast to the original, so that the 'history' of the building is
clearly shown.

Pat on the green
..
On 12/08/2015 06:52, Brian wrote:
My philosophy of quilting is that it is both a fine art and a practical
art.

The fine art portion is that I think even a "stash buster" quilt should
somewhat be coordinated in the colors/patterns chosen, as judged by the
quiltmaker.

The practical art part is that quilts are meant to be used and loved, not
"displayed."

Also, at least in my view, another part of the "practical art" side of
them is that when they wear out, they should be fixed to the best ability
or the quilt owner, and not just thrown out (I suppose this is kind of
"depression era" thinking, even though I am way too young to have lived
in the depression. but it is still my opinion)

The problem is that, there are very few people today that can fix a
quilt. I will make the random stab that perhaps 1% of the population (it
might be more, like 5%, but I really do not think I am going out on a
limb to say it is a relatively small proportion of the population). I
put myself at, I suppose, the bottom of this 1% that has the sewing
skills to repair a quilt.

Well, I have a quilt that was made by my grandmother that is in quite a
need of repair to be useable. It is not a "family heirloom" and I really
don't think it has much value as a museum piece, but it does have meaning
to me and is a sort of "personal heirloom."

I think that it is a crib quilt that was made when I was born, but I am
not sure about that, the reason being that it is a bit big for a crib
quilt, or at least bigger than I would make a crib quilt (~56" x 70"),
but since I am the only living person that knows anything about the
history of this quilt, or even that it exists, that is my story and I am
sticking to it.

Well any, let me try to describe it:

It is a patchwork quilt with the squares being about 8" finished size,
but the squares are not pieced like a whatever state-square, etc.

They are solid pieces of material in 5 different colors, solid white, and
purple, yellow, pink, and brown plaids, with the "stripes" in the plaids
being about 1/4" or so wide.

It doesn't have any framing around it, but one end of it has what I will
call an extension, perhaps because my grandmother did not have enough of
the other materials to make another row to get it to be ~70 inches long.

The following are my ideas about fixing it:

The extension looks like a rabid dog got at it and just chewed it up, and
it is well beyond repair. It needs to be totally replaced.

As for the squares, the white, pink and black are in good shape, but the
yellow and purple are pretty much worn out an need replacing.

I have 3 ideas about how I can repair them:

The first is to replace the purple and yellow squares with solid white
ones, and just make the quilt have a higher proportion of the solid white
squares than it originally did. I think I have enough white material in
my "stash" to do that.

The second is to go to the fabric store and match the purple and yellow
plaids as closely as I can and use those for repairing it.

The third is to choose some colors that I deem "appropriate" out of what
I have in my stash and use that to repair it.

In my stash, I have 2 plaids that are very different from the plaids in
the original quilt.

One shares some of the same colors as the original quilt, specifically
the purple, pink and white, but the stripes are much wider (~1") than the
original.

The other shares some of the colors as the original, namely yellow, pink
and white with the original, but in this the "stripes" are of varying
widths.

The reason that I am thinking of using these plaids, even though they are
radically different, is to make a very large contrast between the
original quilt and my repair job.

There is also a place on the back that needs repair, but my idea for
that is to put a label on it that gives a bit of history of the quilt,
and have it say something like "originally made by Ruth Sherwood, 1961,
repaired by Brian Christiansen, 2015," rather than just cutting out a
piece of white material and patching it that way.

I was considering putting up some pictures for this, but my apartment is
too dark to for the pictures to come out. Perhaps I will try again
tomorrow when I can open my curtains and let the sunshine in.

For those who use metric, 1" is about 2.5cm, 56" is about 140 cm and 70"
is about 175 cm.

Brian Christiansen