Vintage Quilt Rescue

Happy Tuesday! Today I wanted to share a recent quilt rescue project I undertook!

I've made it a habit to go to the Goodwill Outlet near us in the mornings on the weekend. Digging through the bins of linens and books is a great way for me to check out for 30 minutes or so. It's kind of chaotic, but different from my everyday chaotic, so I can really disconnect for a bit. I've found some incredible things there lately, including a few vintage quilts. I have a really hard time leaving those behind, despite the fact that we have a home full of quilts! Knowing that their next stop is a landfill just hurts.


That's how I ended up bringing home this little quilt! It's a small throw that was in pretty good shape considering. The main issues with it were the binding had mostly disintegrated, and it had almost no quilting holding it together. I knew it wouldn't take much to get this quilt back in working order.


The first thing I did was remove the binding and fix a couple small holes. In hindsight, I probably should have taken the time to replace the batting since it was all balled up in some places. But, we're working with very minimal crafting time over here, so! I knew it needed a decent amount of quilting to make sure it all continued to hold together. I went with a simple diagonal grid. I followed the lines of the patchwork, so the quilting is a bit funky, but that's okay.


Unfortunately, the old binding was not salvageable. Time for new!


All done! It's not a dramatic transformation, but I do think that it's life has been extended.


Other than the fun colors and prints in this quilt, my favorite thing about it is how soft it is. These fabrics have been washed so many times, it's extremely soft.


The back is a plain blue, you can really see the quilting on the back.


I loved the scrappiness of the old binding, but I really didn't have the right solids to recreate it. So I went with this nice woven stripe that's been in my stash forever. I believe it was also thrifted, which is nice!


It felt really good to bring this quilt home and give it a little tender loving care. It is now living a happy life as a car quilt. I keep it in the car to use as a quilt to use in the car, so take out at the park. I hope it has many more years of use in it now!

Happy Quilting!