I haven’t written about quilts in a while. I love vintage quilts. I think they help make a house a home. Their colors and patterns light up a room.

Sure you can buy new quilts, and I do. But I don’t live in a beige, beige world. I like color. And I like the stories that quilts often tell.

When I find vintage quilts, sometimes I hear a story and other times I don’t. This is a quilt I bought off of a Maine dealer on eBay a few years ago. It wasn’t much money and needed a fair bit of repairs. I don’t know it’s story, but it comes from the land of snowy winters so I imagine it was well used.

I am OK with repairs. I can do patches of my own design. I hand sew, I actually don’t know how to use a sewing machine anymore. It’s been too many years and I was never very good to begin with. My mother is great with a sewing machine and my friend’s mom is a real quilter and she and her friends use those long arm machines. So my repairs are neat but more basic than real quilters.

You definitely can’t classify me as a real quilter. Those folks are true artists.

However, I do try to be artistic with my patches. I get fun fabric odds and ends when I can find them. One of my favorite sources of fabric odd lots is the Smithfield Barn via their pop-up sales which are online, and places like The Harriton Fair and The St. David’s Fair. I look for calicoes, nice solids, some fun patterns. I even repurpose old flannel shirts and jeans past their prime.

I have said before that I feel like quilts are a form of folk art, but my quilts are used. I know people who have amazing quilts mounted on walls as textile art.

Quilt shows are fun to go to. The patterns and colors are amazing. Quilts as I have said before are such a happy thing.

I have been working on this one for a while – like 3 winters. I usually work on them here and there in the winter. It’s a nice heavy quilt. It actually kept me toasty warm today as I worked on it. The quilt is about 3/4 restored now.

Old quilts often have another life waiting to happen. Buy them, mend them, use them.

Thanks for stopping by.