Well, I did it. I couldn’t hold back any longer. After more than a year of admiring Tula Pink City Sampler quilts on Instagram, I finally jumped on board and made one of my own. And oh am I glad I did.
You all know that I’m not much of a quilt pattern person. I tend to do my own thing rather than follow a pattern, but the City Sampler quilt was just too good to pass up.
Besides it obviously being beautiful, it’s also an amazing scrap buster, and I am all about making scrap-busting quilts. With 100 blocks and multiple fabrics required for many of those blocks, there’s an opportunity to use up a lot of scraps. Huzzah!
My version of the Tula Pink City Sampler uses all Denyse Schmidt fabric. Why? Because I have a lot of DS fabric. A lot. I would guess that at least half of my stash is Denyse Schmidt. I’ve got big pieces, little pieces and everything in between. I knew that I would have more than enough DS fabric just using scraps to make this quilt, so that’s what I did.
Not only are all the blocks DS fabric, but I wanted to make all 100 blocks using different fabrics for each block. I managed to do that except for one yellow fabric I accidently used twice. Oops! Otherwise none of the fabrics repeat.
One thing you will notice is that I didn’t do the white sashing between blocks. If you have the book you know there are a few different versions of the quilt you can make, but probably the most common one you see is with the white sashing.
I chose not to add it because I thought I would like it better without, but I think it looks great either way.
The back of this quilt is also scrappy and uses two large pieces of Denyse Schmidt fabric and that great olive green floral print from Amy Butler. I thought it went so well with the quilt that I just had to use it.
Scrappy blocks on the front and a scrappy quilt back is all my fabric busting quilt dreams come true. All in one project!
So, I can’t finish this blog post without telling you who this quilt is for, which is the most important part of this story. It’s for my BFF who got married over the weekend! Yea!
This quilt was my wedding gift to my best friend since we were 13-years-old, Sara, and her husband Brian. I finished the quilt a couple of months ago and I’ve had it tucked away just waiting for Sara and Brian’s wedding. I didn’t even share any of the blocks on Instagram while I was making it because I knew Sara would see them and I didn’t want to give her any ideas that it could be her wedding gift.
It was so hard not to share it and I’m very happy the quilt is no longer in hiding and is now in its new home in Minneapolis. Congrats Sara and Brian!
Raise your hand if you like vintage quilts. I happen to love vintage quilts and I’m always on the lookout for them. I love seeing the fabrics used – much of which is feedsack fabric – and I love how they can provide lots of inspiration for making new quilts.
I’ve done a blog post about vintage/antique quilts before, but that was back in December of 2014. So, I thought it was time for another one.
I was in Iowa last month to go an Iowa football game (Go Hawks!) and to visit family. While I was there, I spent an afternoon antiquing with my mom and the antique stores we went to were full of old quilts. I just had to take a few pics of my favorites to share with all of you. Check out the beauties I found.
First up is this purple star quilt. I looove this one and it kind of makes me want to order some English paper pieces and make my own version.
This fan quilt was in pretty bad shape, but I loved the feedsack fabric so much I had to grab a picture of one of the fans that looked good.
I’ve seen versions of this circle-style quilt before and I’ve had a similar one on my quilt to-do list for ever.
I love how the quilt maker used the colored fabrics for the background. Here’s a close-up so you can see.
Here’s another version of a star quilt with the most beautiful shade of green as the background fabric.
This is another quilt that wasn’t in the best shape, but I had never seen this pattern before. Anyone know if it has a name? I loved it!
These shapes and piecing would take some time, but wouldn’t it be worth it in the end if you had a quilt that looked like this?
Out of all the quilts I saw, this may have been my favorite, but I am a sucker for anything pink.
To top it off, it was in great shape. It was hard not to buy this one, but like I need more quilts in my apartment.
And finally, I couldn’t leave without sharing a flower garden quilt from my antiquing excursion. It’s such a classic and always looks gorgeous with feedsack fabrics.
That wraps up my vintage quilt share for 2017. Hope you enjoyed it!