I hope you don't think I'm too weird but I like watching this show on PBS. Weirdness aside, I was watching tonight and a man brought in a quite beautiful antique quilt- they estimated around 1850 but it was in good shape. It was obviously pieced and quilted by different quilters. There was quite a bit of applique on it similar to the Carolina Lily block, the centre had a version of a couple of US flags with crisscrossed poles.

Anyway the interesting part came in the assessment. The lady doing the critique talked about the obvious difference of the quilting styles and the different complexity of the quilt designs in each block. Some were simple and some very intricate and elaborate applique. She also said, "I can see that this quilt has been washed at least once maybe more. This decreases the value of the quilt because instead of being pristine it has some pucker and wrinkles from washing". The man said he had taken it for an evaluation and someone told him it was worth about $300. The lady said, the value of this quilt was $10,000 to $12,000 and if it had not been washed it would have been about $15,000

Just posting this for interest sake, if you think you are doing a heritage piece don't wash it.