Beneath the Surface: The Delicate Art of Quilt Conservation

Step behind the scenes with the New Brunswick Museum’s conservation team as they rescue a deteriorating 1950s quilt using specialized techniques—from hair-thin silk thread to surgical needles. Their painstaking work, often conducted under magnification, reveals both the science and artistry required to preserve these textile treasures for future generations.

This winter, Conservator Dee Stubbs-Lee and volunteer Marilyn Peabody spent many weeks preparing 12 historic and contemporary floral-themed quilts from the New Brunswick Museum’s extensive quilt collections for the exhibition Bouquet of Quilts. A detailed assessment was made of the condition of each quilt and conservation treatments were undertaken to clean and stabilize the artifacts. Quilts in good condition were hung vertically, requiring hours of work sewing wide Velcro strips to a fabric backing, then carefully hand sewing this to the back of each quilt.

One quilt (New Brunswick Museum 2018.11) made c. 1955 by Mary Watson of Fredericton and recently donated to the New Brunswick Museum by Shiela Watson-White, was in too fragile a condition for this method of hanging. Although not as old as some quilts in the exhibition, this one had endured extensive use before it was collected and preserved by the museum. Dee and Marilyn stabilized hundreds of loose applique pieces on the quilt, working under magnification using “hair silk” (the single fibre extruded from a silk worm) and very fine beading and surgical needles to avoid damaging the original fabric, and to make the new stitches as invisible as possible.

These repairs allow us to see the pattern, and ensure that the quilt will survive many years for future study. Textiles conservation work is intensive in both time and space, so it was undertaken in a makeshift workspace in the former Decorative Arts gallery, allowing work for another New Brunswick Museum exhibition, Cursive Conundrum, to be done at the Conservation Lab. New Brunswick Museum Preparator Sean Driscoll constructed a custom exhibition mount to safely support the quilt on an incline. Marilyn, an expert quilter and long-time volunteer in the conservation section, was a great help in preparing this exhibit.