Question.

sounds ok to me. i'd probly use the back side of any similar colour/patterned fabric. the backs are nearly always lighter. j.

"Megan Zurawicz" wrote ... I have a quilt that I quilted some years ago; the top was done by my grandmother.

Other than emotional value, it has none; this is not a hand-me-down heirloom quilt, but a scrap quilt of feed sacks and flour sacks, meant to be utilitarian. Brick pattern alternating feed sack scraps and white flour sack scraps. So this is a quilt top that's *at least* 60+ years old, since she died nearly 61 years ago.......

There's a small rip in one patterned brick, maybe 3/4" long. No idea how it got there.

I don't really want to sew another, different brick patch over that brick patch, and I can't match the fabric.

Rather than trying to sew up the rip---thereby putting more pressure on the fabric in other directions---I'm contemplating making a patch about one inch or an inch by an inch and a half, carefully tucking it *inside* the quilt under the rip, and then sewing the ripped bits *down* to it more than trying to force the rip closed. In the end, I'd be essentially darning it, but darning it to supporting fabric underneath.

What do you think? Any pitfalls I'm missing? Better ways to handle it?

--pig

Nonsense. The quilt you describe:

-- is very much a precious heirloom and a work of art.

As for your proposal for mending the rip, it sounds like just way go about it, but what do I know? My only additional suggestions would be to be sure to use a very lightweight thread -- perhaps a single string embroidery of DMC embroidery floss -- to affix the patch, so as not to put too much stress on the older fabric. And I suggest muslin as the foundation for your darning -- again, its light weight and loose weave won't fight the older fabric too much.

ep

Back when the earth was cooling, there was a method of mending that - golly, I don't quite know how to make you see it with me - was called re-weaving. Very simply described, you took soft fine threads and wove them in and out before and after the rip; slowly, gently and invisibly. Horizontally and then vertically. I can do it a whole lot better than I can explain it. Why don't you send the quilt to me? Polly

Yep, I was impressed.

Not impressed enough to send her grandma's quilt, you understand, but impressed. :)

--pig

Even *I* was impressed. We learned from the best. Polly

"Megan Zurawicz" <

Sounds good to me, pig!

Another option might be to applique a small piece over it, but I like your idea better.

Dragonfly