Friday Finish - Pinks from the Past Quilt

Vintage sheets. Finding them, collecting them and sewing with them is something I take much delight in.  I adore the colours, the retro prints and when it comes to softness, oh-me-oh-my, the ones that are all cotton are incomparable.

I have been collecting vintage sheets for over a decade now and one of my favourite things to make using them, is a quilt!

Have you seen the first one I made? (click here)

Then, a few years later I made this one (click here).

However, I have been longing to make an all pink, all cotton vintage sheet quilt for as long as I have been collecting them.  I wanted it to be scrappy - which for me, meant collecting a large variety of prints to use and preferably finding ones with a smaller scale print (to work best with being cut into small pieces for blocks).

The lovely pink sheets and pillow cases I kept finding, predominately were of large scale prints.  Rather than stick to my first plan, I decided to adapt my idea and choose to feature those prints in large sections, with a improv style for the "block" layout.  That way, I would get to showcase those big, retro designs!

My quilt is a combination of pillowcases and sheets - all vintage and all cotton.  After piecing the top, I discovered a hole that had been hand mended (thus escaping my earlier detection of it).  I decided to lay a fabric "patch" on top of the hole, rather than removing the section with the hole in it. I simply pressed all the raw edges under on the patch before sewing it to the pieced quilt top.  Not only did the patch take care of the flaw, it added an extra dimension and point of interest to the patchwork.

One of the "patches" I added to the pieced quilt top - shown after the quilting had been completed.

Okay, you know what happened next, right?

Yes! I added a few other random patches to the top. I love the result!

From the beginning, I wanted this quilt to be an enjoyable, relaxing project and one that developed organically.  That meant that along with my improv block layout (based largely on using whatever sized pieces I had on hand and playing with placement), I used the same approach for my quilting. I just followed my instinct on what I thought would look good, without worrying about perfection!

The result? I have a random mix of straight line and wavy line (using a built in stitch on my Janome) quilting, that adds texture and tactile enticement!

My lovely new from old pink quilt finished at 60" by 73" and is backed with a twin size vintage sheet (that happens to be one of the prints I had only scraps of for the front - talk about a bit of thrifting serendipity). Finally,  I managed to cut binding strips from the backing sheet cut offs and then machine bound my new favourite quilt for movie watching (or blog posting 😄). A very enjoyable finish that has been so fun to take out for photos at our rental place on the lake.