Sewing and Growing Vintage: January Final Four Finishes

January with the cold and snow is my least favorite month of the year and it’s the month I would choose to hibernate but we were still busy. Besides the semi-weekly visits to the GP House, dental appointments and hubby’s gigs, I was feeling my age this month with catching my first Cold of the season. I have been doing some reminiscing lately and this may be the reason for this theme with these four finishes—quilts made with vintage children prints which have been sitting in my stash for maybe ten to twenty years and just “bugging” me for the past years to finally use them. 

Although I Ike to start the new year with a quilt with bright colors, I decided that I would finally make a quilt with with a group of fabrics I’ve been collecting for over twenty years which included the 26 Letters designed by Chloe’s Closet, several Thimbleberries prints along with miscellaneous prints from Moda and Lakehouse. Can you guess which print was the inspiration for putting these fabrics together?

It was this blue floral print which reminded me of the curtains my late mother made and I loved the vintage look. You can see on the ticket that I purchased this fabric in 2001 and it was only $2 per yard.

I designed a pattern which I call Crazy Eights which are blocks in increments of 8” or eight patches and came up with six different blocks made using the same fabrics. Not pictured is the 8”x16” plain block of the blue floral print.

Coincidentally, while I was planning this quilt,  Mary, Country Threads, restarted the Dirty Dozen UFO Challenge for 2026 and #12 was pulled. I decided that since this was an UFO it would be my #12.

Here’s a pic of the 26 Letters fabric and the adorable vintage illustrations which I remember seeing in my childhood books and the reason why I named this quilt Vintage Alphabet.

I decided to machine quilt with just soft horizontal meandering curves with Mother Goose Star Thread.

Here’s a collage showing the backing which is the blue floral I definitely had enough yardage to use. Can you see the Quilt illustration? The binding is the brown dot which I thought accented nicely with all of the fabrics. Vintage Alphabet measures 56”x72” and I could have added another row of 8” blocks but decided not to since this is the year I wanted to focus on making smaller quilts.

Sacre Bleu or should I say Sacre Pink! While I was sewing Vintage Alphabet, I found yardage of the floral print in Pink while I was in the backing vault. I don’t remember purchasing it and I don’t think I want to make another quilt with it. I do think it would make lovely curtains though.

While I was working on the Vintage Alphabet quilt and within my view, was a bundle of another vintage children print which I had plans to make a wall hanging for several years. I decided to quickly make this after the Vintage Alphabet Quilt was finished since I like dual finishes. The focus prints with the children are from Windham Fabrics. This wall hanging measures 24” square and definitely was a quick and easy make. I should mention that the focus fabrics in this quilt and the blue floral print in the Vintage Alphabet quilt were purchased on one of the many shopping trips, locally and Shipshewana, made with my Peeps.

Since arriving home on Tuesday from the GP House, I thought I would machine quilt these two flimsies made in 2024 and I had on my Dirty Dozen UFO Challenge List and they were fitting for the children theme I’m on. Both of these were made from my American Jane stash which included charm packs. The table runner is a modified Villa Rosa Clover pattern and measures 18”x 43”.

This small lap quilt was made with charm squares and rectangles and I can’t remember if this was a pattern or something I came up with because I didn’t want to make another Fat Quarter Shop Charm Pack Cherry. This measures 45”x54” I have a love/hate relationship with this quilt because I decided to try a new batting I purchased and it’s a little too poofy for me. I definitely will have no problems with laying this on the floor or grass. Fortunately, I still have lots of American Jane stash to make more quilts. Also, I do have a lot of Mary Engelbreit fabrics and I could make a lovely wall hanging with her adorable prints.

Thanks to the cold and snow, I definitely had good SewJo in January with six finishes. As mentioned earlier, I had two major dental visits for the final fitting of my implants and for a crown replacement. This pic is definitely something I did while laying  in the chair for over an hour during each visit. Boy, I ddid I have some aches and cramps afterwards. Thankfully, my dental visits are over but yearly physicals are scheduled for February. It’s looks like cold and snow and growing old or vintage will continue this week and I definitely will be in the studio. Tomorrow a new number will be drawn for the Dirty Dozen UFO Challenge and I am ready. I have a lot of projects I would like to make from this list.