Enlarging a Quilt

One of my quilting friends made this "envelope quilt" for her daughter. The original quilt ended inside the grey framing border. Her daughter loved the quilt, but, not the size. She asked her mother to make the quilt bigger!

My friend brought it to me and asked if this was something I could do. I first said no. I am a sucker for a challenge though...and told her I had never done that before but would try for her.

Step one was to get my handy little seam ripper out and carefully remove the binding. Next, I added the grey framing border being careful to sew it to the quilt top fabric only. Then I added a narrow white border before sewing on the wide Flying Geese borders I created. One more white border and that completed the additions to the quilt top.

Next came the backing.  I made a large border to match the existing backing and accommodate the changes I had made to the front. I carefully sewed this wide "border" to the edges of the  quilt backing. That process completed the extensions to the quilt back.

Now came time to quilt this modified quilt. This was no easy task. I cut wide pieces of batting and butt them up against the existing batting as I loaded the quilt on my longarm machine. Since the original part of the quilt was already quilted, care had to be taken to smooth out the new additions   (not pulling too taut as to break threads) while getting all of the new additions perfectly even so as not to cause wrinkles or puckers. I quilted the new parts to match the original quilting all while adjusting the new batting as it wanted to shift during the entire process.

Finally, new binding and this project was completed!!!

My friend, her daughter and I are all quite pleased with the results. My sister and several other friends and quilters say they cannot tell where the original quilt ends and the new begins.

I am happy I took on the challenge and very excited about the finished quilt!

Happy quilting,
Laurel