Sunday, May 04, 2008

Vintage Quilts

My friend, the veteran yard saler, recently sold me a stack of beautiful vintage quilts. As I am a sucker for any kind of vintage fabric, I snapped them right up! Now, on occasion, I drag them out of their box and gaze lovingly on them. And that's about all I do with them. I am sort of stuck as to how to put them to use. Of course, I don't want to use them on our beds, as they seem a bit fragile. I certainly am not going to cut them up and make them into other projects for a couple of reasons. First, it would seem sacrilegious to cut them up, and also, I really don't know what I would do with pieces of vintage quilts. I'm not too into the quilted clothing thing (believe me, I need as little bulk as possible in my clothing!). I could make pillows or something, but, again, I would be afraid they would get ruined. And, I am not really into hanging quilts on walls. Not my style, but I can appreciate it in someone else's house. Who knows... maybe I should sell them? Meanwhile, here are some pictures. I apologize for the shots. They aren't great. It was a nice bright day, so no flash, but I think they look a little out of focus.

Quilt 1:




A couple of up-close shots:




This is the back.  Beautiful, huh?


The interesting part is that there is a whole other quilt underneath.  I have no idea how old this quilt is.  Anybody want to hazard a guess?  Here are two shots of the quilt underneath:



Here is another large quilt:


And some up-close shots.  I think that a lot of the pieces are the coveted feed sack fabric.  So, maybe these quilts are from the 30's?  I have no idea.



The colors are just so great!




This is a vintage crazy quilt.  


I suspect the same person that made the previous quilt also made this one.  There are a lot of the same fabrics, specifically the red, white and blue striped pattern.  But, she got all crazy with the second one!




Some great pieces with gorgeous colors....



This one is really stunning.



This is a little pillow cover.


And the back of the pillow cover:


And the last one....


Some close-ups:



I love the orange and green in this one.


So, if anybody out there has any information on these fabrics and an idea of the age of the quilts, I would love to know!

3 comments:

Anonymous said...

I think it's a shame not to use them. I don't know too much about quilting but maybe you could reinforce them a bit so they wouldn't be so fragile? Or are you not so much afraid the seams would come apart as the fabric would rip? Marianne, what do you think? Maybe you could use them as throws on the sofa or chairs? They are really pretty and someone worked so hard on them.

Betsy

Anonymous said...

Love Antique quilts, I used to love the ones at my grandmas, thanks for sharing.

Anonymous said...

you might want to get them appraised before you decide what to do with them. a friend of mine, Mary Kerr, is a certified AQS appraiser so she could tell you how old they are and how valuable they are. if they are of value you could either sell them <:o) or decide what to do with them to make sure they stay valuable. if they are not valuable then you might want to do something else with them. another friend of mine who does a lot of work with vintage materials has some great looking pillows in her family room that she made from vintage quilts. they are the big kind of pillows you sit on and they look great in her house, but i don't really think these quilts are your decorating style. but maybe you could make them into pillows and sell them to someone else! or sell them to an antique store.
(if you go to Mary Kerr's website she has links to other people who work with vintage fabrics. you might get some good ideas).

Marianne