I have another recent pillow project to share! I thrifted this vintage tea towel so long ago that I can't even find a photo of it! Honestly, it could have been 15 years ago for all I remember. I know I've had it for a really long time. Last month I decided it was finally time to make it into something! This idea was fueled by thrifting a long rectangular pillow form. I realized that this tea towel was pretty much the perfect size for a cover.



I knew I wanted to use an invisible zipper for this cover so that it would be a double sided pillow. Lucky me, I had this geometric canvas print by Ellen Luckett Baker in my stash that coordinated nicely in color and design to the tea towel. I started this project by quilting both pieces. After cutting them both to size, I used my serger to finish all the edges.



Ta-da! The finished result! I love how it turned out. Such a simple project, but so satisfying. The tea towel is so funky, I am very glad that it is out of storage and living its life as a pillow cover!


And the other size is fun too. I started working on this pillow after our local JoAnn fabrics closed and honestly had a hard time sourcing an invisible zipper that matched and was long enough. My Mom brought me one from her stash, but while she was visiting we went to Ecoworks, our local craft thrift store and they had the perfect match! It's the same color blue as the back of the pillow and the length was just right. It's like it was meant to be. My application of it could have been better, but that's okay. I haven't installed that many invisible zippers in pillows, so I just need some more practice!

If we're keeping track, this project used a thrifted pillow insert, thrifted tea towel, and thrifted zipper! :)

Happy Sewing!

Reclaimed Vintage Quilt Pillows

Happy Friday! Today I want to share a pair of quilted pillow covers I made recently from thrifted quilts!

This was one of the first quilts that I thrifted from the Goodwill Outlet. It unfortunately has a lot of damage, so I knew right away it was going to end up being cut up. So far I've made this pillow and a giant bow out of it!


For this pillow I decided to cut the front at a 45 degree angle, so it looks like the blocks are on point! This allowed me to take advantage of some of the blocks that were in better shape. It's hard to tell from the photos, but this pillow is huge! The form is around 26" square.


I used more of the quilt for the back, centering two blocks.


I did a zippered closure with end tabs for a nice clean look. This is my favorite way to finish pillow covers. I am really proud to say this entire pillow is made from reclaimed materials! I thrifted the pillow form, quilt, scrap fabric and the zipper. I ripped the zipper out of a duvet cover that I found.


This quilt is another Goodwill Outlet find, and most of it became my first quilted coat! I still need to share more about that.


I made this pillow cover for my Mom, for Mother's day! I thought it would look nice in her craft room.


I finished the back of this cover with more scraps of the quilt!


And another zippered closure. Since I was working with already quilted material, these pillow covers came together really fast! I sergered around the edges of all the pieces before I started sewing, to make sure they'll hold up to a gentle wash.

Happy Sewing!

Vintage Sheet Pillow Cover Projects

Happy Friday! Today I want to share a few recent pillow covers that I made using my vintage sheet stash!


Lately I've had good luck finding nice feather pillow forms at the Goodwill Outlet. Since they can't be washed, I seal them in big black trash bags and let them sit in the summer heat in our garage for a month or so before running them through the "sanitize" setting on our dryer. Once this group were ready to come into the house, I set about making covers for them! I had two 20" forms and one 24".




For the first 20" pillow form, I decided to make a pillow using the Woven Quilt pattern, which can be found in my book, Patchwork Essentials: The Half-Square Triangle. This one is made completely from scraps! Honestly, I'd love to make an entire quilt like this!! I really love how it turned out, so scrappy and happy. I used the wide hem of a sheet for the back, which worked pretty well! It gapes a little bit, could probably have made the two halves overlap more, but that's okay. It still works!




For the 24" pillow form I really wanted to use the pillow cover I made when I released my Giant Vintage Star Quilt Pattern. Unfortunately, at the time I could not find it anywhere (I've since found it, yay!). So I decided to make another one! I had just thrifted the background sheet, which is what I used as the starting point for this pillow. For this one I put in a simple zippered backing.




Last but not least, this pillow cover was a fun experiement. I wanted to make something that used up some more of the wide sheet hems. I put a foundation for the front and then sewed the sheet hems onto it, overlapping them to hide the raw edges. The result is pretty different from what I normally make, but I like it all the same! And I used up a couple hems, so win-win!!


Baby girl is climbing all over everything right now, so it's nice to have a few more pillows to add to the mix. Our couch is constantly surrounded by pillows since her preferred way to get off of it is headfirst! Haha. Also, I just love making pillow covers. They're not too time consuming, you can experiement, and they really liven things up in my opinion! These were a lot of fun to make.

Happy Sewing!

What I'm Working on Right Now

Happy Friday! I had a big backlog of finished projects, but today I thought it would be nice to share some things I'm working on right now.


I have two (very different) sets of 12 quilt blocks that have been sitting around for a while, and I've decided to get them both finished up into quilts. The first set is a bunch of warm colored blocks from the first virtual quilt bee I participated in (3x6 bee!), back in 2010. These are long overdue to become a quilt! I've decided to make a smaller version of my Interlaced Quilt. Right now I'm working on the in between blocks, but it shouldn't take long to get this one sewn into a finished quilt top!


This quilt top came together in July! I have a bunch of 2" strips leftover from when I used to make Wrapped Wreath kits, and I wanted to use some of them up. Originally I was going to make a pillow and I made two smaller blocks but wasn't happy with how either turned out. So I made those two blocks larger and then made two more to make this quilt top! I don't always mix stripes in with the florals, so it's a bit different from my typical mix!


I'm currently working on quilting this quilt. The plan is to do some wavy lines in both directions to create a wavy checkerboard quilting pattern!


I've been working on a new pattern! This one has been kicking around my brain for more than 10 years, and it's finally time to get it out!


I started another soft and subtle quilt. This time using my Candyweb block pattern.


I'm really loving how it's coming along. I wasn't sure what it would look like with such low contrast, but I think it's still really cool! I was planning to stop at four blocks, but now I think I've talked myself into nine, so I have five more to make! Taking a little break from this to work on other things at the moment, but I'll come back to it soon!


I've been on a bit of a pillow making spree! I've made three covers in the last few weeks. I've thrifted a bunch of nice pillow forms and I'm slowly covering them all!! I love making pillow covers, they're so satisfying.

Hopefully I can share some of these projects in full soon! I'm struggling to make time to take good photos (baby's nap does not line up with the good light in the sewing room) and do all the computer work behind publishing a blog post at the moment. I would love to show up here more regularly! For now, I'm doing the best I can. Hope you're all well!

Happy Sewing!

Projects Made with Vintage Sheets

Happy Wednesday! If you've been following along here for almost any amount of time, you'll know that I love to work with vintage sheets in my sewing and quilting projects! Working with them and collecting them has been a part of my creative journey for 12+ years! I first started collecting and sewing with them in 2011. Over the years I've made many different projects repurposing these beautiful bedsheets, and I wanted to bring them all together in one big post. To be honest, there were a few that I had forgotten about! For most of these projects, there is a corresponding blog post, but I'm also sharing a little bit about each project here. If there is a tutorial or pattern associated with the project, I've also included a link to that. My plan is to keep this post updated as I make more things with vintage sheets.


When I finished my most recent vintage sheet project late last year, I realized how multi-layered my love for this material is. First and foremost, I just find the patterns and colors to be so beautiful. I also appreciate how unique they are, especially compared to most of the quilting cotton designs that are available today. But I also really love being able to give new life to a discarded material. Almost all of my vintage sheet collection has come from thrift stores, which means someone didn't want them! Being able to rescue them from a path to a landfill and turn them into something beautiful is really satisfying. It's also a really budget friendly source for fabric. Even when vintage sheet prices being a bit higher than when I first started collecting, it's usually still a good price for how much fabric you're getting.

I've broken down my projects into categories, and within each category they are mostly in chronological order. So you'll be seeing more recent projects first, and then older projects. Seeing it all broken down also made me think about what kinds of projects I want to make with vintage sheets next!

Quilts


Soft and Subtle Vintage Sheet Plus Quilt - I had been wanting to make a low contrast plus quilt for a long time, and this baby sized quilt is the result! It's so soft!

You can read more about this quilt here: Soft and Subtle Vintage Sheet Plus Quilt, and I have a pattern for this quilt which can be found Arithmetic Quilt Pattern (PDF).



Vintage Bear Paw Quilt - This throw size quilt came together over the course of three years. I think it was worth the delay though! I used so many different prints in this quilt, and I love how subtle some blocks are.

You can read more about this quilt here: Vintage Bear Paw Quilt, and I have a pattern for this quilt which can be found Vintage Bear Paw Quilt Pattern (PDF).



Vintage Bear Paw Baby Quilt - Another bear paw quilt, this one I didn't even mean to make! When I was making the throw size quilt, I went a little overboard cutting block parts and had enough leftover to make a baby quilt.

You can read more about this quilt here: Vintage Bear Paw Baby Quilt, and I have a pattern for this quilt which can be found Vintage Bear Paw Quilt Pattern (PDF).



Photos © 2020 Love, Patchwork & Quilting Magazine
Patchwork Posy Quilt - There is something about stars and vintage sheets that I just can't resist! I made this quilt for the 84th issue of Love, Patchwork, and Quilting Magazine. I loved using all different "background" sheets for this one.

You can read more about this quilt here: Patchwork Posy Vintage Sheet Quilt



Vintage Sheet Four Patch Quilt - This throw quilt was the first quilt that I made after we moved to Connecticut in 2017. I was craving something simple and cheerful and this quilt fit that bill! I started by cutting from my vintage sheet scraps and then pulled from my stash.

You can read more about this quilt here: Vintage Sheet Four Patch Quilt



Vintage Sheet Scrappy Trip Quilt - This quilt is so fun. It's a scrappy trip around the world quilt, made using this tutorial by Bonnie Hunter. Every strip that I used for this quilt came from a different sheet, so there are 252 different prints in this quilt! It's a bit of a time capsule for my collection at the time, which I love.

You can read more about this quilt here: Vintage Sheet Scrappy Trip Quilt



Giant Vintage Star Quilt - This quilt went from idea to finished quilt in about 24 hours, making it probably the quickest quilt I've ever made! It's one of my favorites, and it really shows off the sheet prints!

You can read more about this quilt here: Giant Vintage Star Quilt. I also have a tutorial for this quilt: Giant Vintage Star Quilt Tutorial and a pattern for it: Giant Vintage Star Quilt Pattern



Giant Vintage Star Baby Quilt - This is the baby version of my giant vintage star quilt! I think it's so cute. I went with just four colors for this one!

You can read more about this quilt here: Giant Vintage Star Baby Quilt, and instructions for it can be found in the pattern: Giant Vintage Star Quilt Pattern



Vintage Sheet Patchwork Prism Quilt - I really loved making this quilt. I used a free pattern by Anna Maria Horner which can be found here: Patchwork Prism. It may have been my first time sewing with equilateral triangles!

You can read more about this quilt here: Vintage Sheet Patchwork Prism Quilt



Vintage Sheet Sparkling Cider Quilt - My first and probably forever favorite vintage sheet quilt! I still love this quilt so much! I used some of my favorite sheets at the time. The pattern is the Sparkling Cider Quilt Pattern by All Washed Up Quilts, which unfortunately does not seem to be available anymore.

You can read more about this quilt here: Sparkling Cider Vintage Sheet Quilt

Mini Quilts


Log Cabin Mini Quilts - This was a fun set of mini quilts that I made to experiment with prints vs. background fabric placement. I used the Modern Crosses Quilt pattern which can be found in Modern Log Cabin Quilts by Susan Beal*.

You can read more about this quilt here: Log Cabin Mini Quilts


Mother's Day Mini Quilt - I made this quilt for my Mom in 2011 for Mother's Day! I did some simple raw-edge applique with vintage sheet scraps. It hangs in her craft room. :)



Wonky Star Mini Quilt - I made this mini quilt as a part of a swap with a fellow sewer I met on Flickr. I had just participated in a vintage sheet fat quarter swap, which greatly expanded my collection of prints!

You can read more about this quilt here: Wonky Star Mini Quilt

Bags

Laundry Size Lined Drawstring Bag - This bag appears on the cover of my most popular sewing pattern, the Lined Drawstring Bag Pattern! This is the largest size, the Laundry Bag. It's gotten a lot of use over the years!

You can find the pattern for this bag here: Lined Drawstring Bag Pattern


Pillowcase Drawstring Bag - I am still proud of this project idea, it is a drawstring bag made from a pillowcase! I used a vintage pillowcase, but you could do this with a new pillowcase too. It's super fast and requires very little sewing.

You can find a free tutorial for this project here: Quick Pillowcase Drawstring Bag Tutorial


Patchwork Tote Bag - A super simple flat tote bag that I made with some vintage sheet scraps!

Pillows


Vintage Bear Paw Pillow - After making a throw quilt and a baby quilt I still had one bear paw block left, so I turned it into a pillow!

You can read more about this pillow here: Vintage Bear Paw Quilt, and I have a pattern for this quilt block which can be found Vintage Bear Paw Quilt Pattern (PDF).



Giant Vintage Star Pillow - This project is yet another take on my Giant Vintage Star Quilt, this time as a big 24" pillow made with two colors! I used one of my favorite background sheets for this.

You can read more about this pillow here: Giant Vintage Star Pillow. The instructions for it can be found in the pattern: Giant Vintage Star Quilt Pattern



Vintage Sheet Dresden Pillow - This project definitely ranks high on my list of all time favorite makes.

You can read more about this pillow here: Vintage Sheet Dresden Pillow



Vintage Sheet Half-Square Triangle Pillow - I cut out this pillow using an Accuquilt Go! Fabric Cutter* and wrote a tutorial for it! I love pink and yellow together, it's just so cheerful.

You can read more about this pillow and find the tutorial here: Vintage Sheet Half-Square Triangle Pillow Tutorial

Home Decor Projects

Vintage Sheet Wrapped Wreath - This project came about in an effort to use up a specific scrap I was creating when selling vintage sheet fat quarters. I couldn't bear to throw away the skinny hem from the bottom of each sheet, so I came up with this simple wreath design to use them up! And I wrote a tutorial for it too.

You can read more about this project here: Vintage Sheet Wrapped Wreath Tutorial


Scrappy Valance - Another scrappy project, and one that I really loved! I wanted to switch up the valance for my craft room window in our last apartment, but didn't want to buy anything new. There were these cheap metal curtain rows already installed when we moved in. I simply knotted strips of fabric along the rod to create this valance! I think it's pretty cute.

You can read more about this project here: Scrappy Valance


Simple Sheet Blanket - This is one of those projects that is so simple but has gotten TONS of use. I made this blanket by placing two sheets (uncut) right sides together, sewing around all four sides and then turning it right sides out and top stitching along the edges. It is the perfect weight for summer, when you need more than a sheet, but a regular blanket or quilt is too hot. I've used it every summer since making it way back in 2010. I made a matching one (same sheet design, different colorway) for Michael and he uses it every summer too! It's always the simple projects that seem to get the most use at our house!!


Patchwork Blanket - I made this simple patchwork blanket to take with us on a beach vacation in 2010. Nothing fancy, just a bunch of big squares of sheets sewn together, and a solid sheet on the back!


Scrappy Coasters - Back when I had an Etsy shop, I used to make coasters sets to sell! This scrappy set was one of my favorites.


Wrapped Hanger - I wish I knew where this hanger was now! This was a cheap metal hanger (like from the dry cleaner) that I wrapped in thin strips of sheets.

Garments

Hinterland Dress - My first vintage sheet dress! I made this dress using the Hinterland Dress pattern by Sew Liberated.

You can read more about this project here: Vintage Sheet Hinterland Dress


Gathered Skirt - My only other vintage sheet garment is a super simple gathered skirt! I am not 100% sure I ever wore this, as I am really not much of a skirt person!

If you're looking for more vintage sheet project inspiration, check out my Pinterest board: Sewing with Vintage Sheets

If you'd like to learn more about working with vintage sheets, check out this post: How to Identify, Shop for and Sew with Vintage Sheets

Happy Sewing!
*Note: Any links marked with an asterisk in this post are affiliate links. This means if you click through and buy something, I make a small commission, at no extra cost to you.