Vintage Sheets in a Quilt

Like I said in a recent post, it's apparently all the rage to use vintage sheets in making quilts. And, no wonder, since lots of older sheets were well-made, are still in good condition, and have pretty designs that you just don't see any more.

Not long ago, I was surprised to find a sheet set I recognized at the thrift store. (Gotta love thrift-store fabric!) This sheet is the exact kind that my grandmother ALWAYS kept on my great-grandfather's bed. I've never seen one just like it anywhere else. 

Naturally, I had to buy the set. ($2.00 for the set of two? Yes, thank you!) And, naturally, I had to make something special. For starters, I added some snowball corners (of shirt fabric) to squares of the vintage sheet, and to squares of another (not-so-vintage) sheet.

The snowball-corners construction is just like one of the window-quilts I made a few months ago. I talked about the style & inspiration for that one in this post.

I made the quilt top big enough to be a nice throw-sized quilt, added backing and batting and "doodled" all over it with a basic free-motion quilting design.

Did I mention that I just discovered how much easier a darning foot makes the job?! A while back, I found a ridiculously great deal on a basic, simple, no-frills, old-but-barely-used sewing machine ... The sewing machine came with a walking foot and a darning foot!!! Super deal!

I actually got this little quilt put together pretty quickly, which was nice.

I love how the finished product looks from different angles.

The back is a nondescript, non-vintage cotton sheet. (Actually, I found TWO king-size sheet sets on clearance at Wal-Mart: the good kind, 100% cotton, 300 count, solid colors, $11.00 for each set! Again, that's my kind of deal!) And, the quilting is not perfect, but I'm getting better at it.

Up close, the "plain" blocks actually have a tiny tone-on-tone print. I think this makes the quilt a little more interesting, without making it overly busy.  

Another angle-view of the finished quilt, which turned out to be 53" x 63".

And, I think this quilt will live for a while on the cedar chest my grandfather made for me ...

Reading quilt blogs and seeing other people's quilt-process pictures is something that's helped me improve my quilting skills tremendously. It's also something that gives me continual inspiration for what's next on my quilting project-list.

This week's "Finish it up Friday" at CrazyMomQuilts is a great place to see what some other quilters have been working on. CrazyMomQuilts is one of my all-time favorite quilt blogs, and I'm linking this post there, and looking forward to catching some more inspiration.