Single hen

[bronze]

I have a lovely patchwork that my gran made years ago. I've just got it out again and discovered 3 or 4 of the patches have given. They're all ones of the same fabric and the centres of the flowers design. How would I go about sorting them out as I'm not very confident with this kind of thing and am loathe to take it apart. It would never look the same again

[Snowy]

Hi Bron,

I would trace the shape of the patches onto paper and cut out some new fabric about 1/4" bigger all round than your paper shape. Place the fabric onto the paper and fold the rough edges in and iron them down. You should now have a neat patch the same shape as the damaged one. Remove the paper. You could use a bit of bondaweb to hold it in place, then use tiny, invisible stitches around the edges to anchor it over the top of the damaged bit. Does that make sense?

[bronze]

yes it does

thank you

I'll post a pic when I've done

[Olly]

Snowy's advice sounds about right - my mum used to make fabulous patchwork quilts, she would save s"Ooops, word censored!"s of material from home dressmaking, but sometimes she would use cut up pieces of old clothes. Your gran probably did the same, and if the fabric was worn or if it was thin, the patches have probably worn out faster than the other patches around them.

 

I used to love looking at her quilts and identifying dresses that we'd had from the patches.