Bring an antique quilt back to life

Restoring or salvaging an antique or damaged quilt may seem a little daunting at first. Where do you start? How do you go about it? And how can you find the right vintage fabrics to use? It's not as hard as you think: All you need is a scanner, an inkjet printer, some image-editing software, and a little practice.

Scanning a quilt

If areas of your quilt are stained, torn, or even missing, the first step is to map out which areas you need to repair or replace. You may want to draw a diagram on grid paper to determine how much fabric is going to need restoration.

Once you know which pieces of fabric you need, you can begin scanning your quilt. Here are the steps:

1. Carefully place the quilt face-down on your scanner glass.
2. Position it so that the largest available piece of needed fabric is centered on the glass.
3. Scan the quilt using your scanning software. Use the crop tool to select only the area that contains your fabric. If you scan the whole quilt, you will end up with a very large file, which can be very slow and difficult for your computer to work with.
4. Save the image at a high resolution – at least 150 DPI.

Repeat these steps until you've scanned all the fabric samples you'll need to repair your quilt. Don't worry if your fabric sample is only 2" square and you need to repair a patch that's 3" long. You have a couple of options.

Making color adjustments

If the fabric is a plain color, you can use image-editing software to create a whole sheet of fabric that matches it. Here's how:

1. Use the eyedropper tool to select the color you need.
2. Open a new image file, and choose the size you need
3. Use the paint bucket to fill the whole file with the color.
4. Print the new file on paper and compare the color to the original. If necessary, adjust the saturation and brightness of the file to match it to the original fabric.
5. Choose a printable fabric that matches the feel of your original as closely as possible.
6. Print the image on your fabric.

Cloning and copying

If the fabric has a pattern of some kind on it, you may be able to clone, or copy, the fabric to make it larger. (If you simply increase the size of your image file to match the output you need, you will get a fabric with patterns that are larger than the original. If you increase the image size by 200 percent, as shown in this example, the flowers in the original fabric will appear to be twice as large when they are printed out.)

Here are the steps for cloning or copying a fabric pattern:

1. Open your scanned picture in the image-editing software.
2. Increase the canvas size (not the image size) so that the original fabric stays the same but the area around it increases.
3. If your software includes a rubber stamp or clone tool, use it to sample the original and paint in the blank areas. You may need to experiment with the brush sizes and settings before you are satisfied with the results.
4. If you don't have a clone tool, you can select a part of the fabric sample, copy it, and paste a copy next to the original. Use the eraser tool to remove any straight lines or visible edges.

Printing fabric

Once you have the images you need to repair your quilt, print them on a fabric that matches the feel of the quilt you are repairing.

Once you've printed your fabric patches, you can start repairing your quilt. Make sure you save your image files, so that if you make a mistake, you can print out another sheet of fabric. (Before you start on Grandmother's damaged log cabin quilt, it might be a good idea to practice on a chewed-up old pillow first.) Once you've got the hang of it, you may discover that you want to repair everything!