I love vintage quilts, quilt tops, fabrics, etc. Friends who know this often give me vintage pieces to work with. In addition, scouring booths at antique shops has uncovered vintage pieces that I've added to my collection.
The next series of blogs will focus on how I have been using vintage pieces to create new quilts.
The most recently competed quilt top began with a Sunbonnet pillow top, purchased back in 2001!!! I literally had to blow the dust off this piece before working on it--it had been sitting on a shelf next to my ironing board for many months. Along with the piece was a collection of fabrics that I'd gathered to use with it, and my original sketch of the quilt I would create.
Each time I went to the ironing board, I would see this piece. I finally decided that it was time to tackle the project.
The ruffle was trimmed off and the piece trimmed to 15 1/2" square. Because the fabric was thin, I lined it with white cotton fabric. To cover up the small holes in the top left corner, half square triangles were added to all 4 corners using the same white fabric.
I liked the basic ideas of my original sketch, but now the quilt needed to be drafted on graph paper so that all of the parts would fit together.
I started by adding a narrow border of gold fabric to the top and bottom of the piece. Then added a checkerboard border using white and the light teal print. This was followed by another narrow gold border. I was pleased with how it now looked.
But how to make it grow to be baby quilt size?
Triple sashing all around would add length as well as width. But just solid colors all around seemed too boring.
Why not add a 9-patch block in the center of each side border? I had already planned for 9-patch blocks in the border corners...And with some creative piecing, I had just enough of the light teal print to make all of these 9-patch blocks.
The quilt still needed outer borders. I really liked the way the gold fabric that I'd used in the small borders looked with the light teal (this brought out the gold embroidered centers of the flowers). I went to my stash of fabric yardage to see if I had any gold fabric that might work with these other fabrics. I found this "funky" fabric, and the more I looked at it, the more I liked it with what I'd already done.
Solid teal and white pinwheel corners break up the busy-ness of the outer border. And a butterfly applique near the Sunbonnet's hat covers the remaining small hole in the original piece. I am very happy with the finished quilt top, which measures ~35" x 45".
