Florals & Feedsacks Quilt

This past summer, I found a quilt top at an estate sale. It was simple hand-pieced patchwork, made from vintage fabrics and feed sacks that appear to date from the 1930’s and 40’s. Based on the randomness of the design, the frugal maker most likely had decided to just use up the scraps in her sewing basket. Several squares of fabric had shredded and disintegrated with time. The quilt top was an impulse buy, and I hung it up on my design wall for weeks, wondering what I would do with it. And then a flash of inspiration! I decided to use it as the back for one of my first machine embroidered Redwork quilts, since the Redwork consists of vintage floral designs. After I cut out the part of the quilt top that was damaged, I was able to use some leftover feed sack squares for the cornerstones in the sashing for the front. For the binding, I just pulled the back over to the front of the quilt, which really helped to tie in the patchwork back to the floral embroidered blocks on the front. And an embroidered quilt label on the back was the finishing touch!

Florals and Feedsacks Quilt by Katie Longsmith, 2020 / Size: 60″ x 60″ / 100% cotton fabrics, new and vintage / vintage florals machine embroidery designs / spring vine quilting design