I like to show the vintage pieces in my collection on occasion. Today it is a bright, cheerful, and well-used quilt that came my way last year…isn’t it fun, in a sort of “summertime fresh”, unsymmetrical, fun sort of way? I love that it’s very much a “make do with what you have” type of design, some of the blocks match on all eight outer quadrants, but some don’t.

It’s like she just thought, “well I don’t have enough of the red floral to finish this block…oh well, I’ll just use this brown calico square instead.” Utility reigned over beauty in this creation.

But the scrappy-ness of it is beautiful in it’s own right, don’t you think?

Unfortunately, the utilitarian work of this quilt nearly took it’s life completely… Who knows how many times it was washed in lye soap and hung in the sun to dry? Only the quilt knows, and it shows, right down to the batting…

I also acquired a fun little collection of vintage wooden spools over the last few weeks:

The two items at the far left were in the box as well, an almost three-inch diameter Bakelite button, and a wooden darning gourd. My sweetie has gotten really good at spotting vintage sewing supplies, machines and notions when perusing antique shops and flea markets.

I love this one with the kitty-cat motif on it:

And don’t you wish you could buy 3 yards of SILK embroidery thread for a nickel?

I’ve added them to my canning jar of wood spools, wood needle cases and clothespins.

I have many more vintage buttons than this, they just aren’t shown here! The Ball jar on the right holds wool beads I purchased from Handbehg Felts. They make a bright, fun quilt studio decoration, until I get around to using them…

Do you have vintage sewing or domestic goodies in your home?