Found: Vintage Linens

Have I told you before about my love for vintage linens?  If I haven’t, they make the list of my favorite things.  And they are high on the list.  I think maybe us quilters naturally gravitate towards all kinds of fabric.  Table linens, bed linens, any kind of linens, really, fit into that category.  We like all kinds of fabric!

So I was doing a little snooping around my parents’ house when I was home over the holidays and I happened upon a couple of goodies.  The first is an old tablecloth that my parents received as a wedding gift back in the 70s!  My mom never had the right table size for it so it was tucked away in a drawer and still in the packaging.  Unfortunate for her that she never had the right sized table, but guess who has the perfect table size now?  Oh yes I do.

I call this look “Modern Granny.”  Yes it’s a lot of floral, and maybe it’s not modern granny but just granny granny, but I like it anyway.  The lighting in the photo is bad and it’s looking a little gray, but in person it’s a turquoise blue color.  Right now this modern granny look is working for me in my apartment.

I picked up one other tablecloth over the holidays but I found it at an antiques store, not my parents’ house.  It is of the same style that my pink tablecloth is, but just different enough that I had to have it.

I don’t have a name for this one but I think “Farm Table Chic” might work.   It kind of reminds me of sitting around my grandma’s breakfast table at her farm when I was a kid.  She would make homemade bread and jam and oh it was good.

And last but not least of my vintage linens finds, I snagged this bed sheet from my mom.  It was next to the old tablecloth and also still in the packaging.  She thought the bed sheet was also from the 70s.

I love collecting old bed sheets to use for the backs of quilts.  I will be hanging on to this one until I make the perfect quilt top to complement the vintage sheet.   I can actually see making a really modern, graphic looking quilt top to pair with it.  Because they would be so opposite I think they could work really well together.  Just an idea I’ve got brewing in my head!