JULIE'S STAR

I remember many years ago at various craft shows or quilt shows there would be vendors selling jackets and other clothing items with decorative appliqués on them.  The appliqués I’m referring to were very specific too.  They were all cut out of the colorful vintage tablecloths from mainly the 1950’s.  I never bought one of the jackets though I was tempted.

Years later I inherited a small collection of my late mother-in-law’s vintage tablecloths.  They were assorted sizes and some were stained pretty badly.  But the colorful designs on each one were still lovely.  Only one tablecloth wasn’t stained at all and it was also the largest one, fitting my dining room table perfectly.  Perhaps it was only used for special occasions back then.  It is one of the tablecloths I like to use when my own family and grandchildren come to visit.  It’s meant to be used and enjoyed.

The other tablecloths I sadly relegated to the linen closet.  Occasionally I would take them out, look at each one, and then place them back in the closet.  I thought and thought about what I wanted to do with them, but just couldn’t come to a decision.  That is until one Christmas several years ago.  My sister-in-law (my husband’s only sister) has a big family Christmas at her home every year and I always bring her a special hostess gift.  On that particular Christmas I got the idea to take one of my vintage tablecloths, her mother’s tablecloths, and make a personal gift for her.  

I picked out the tablecloth with my favorite design and was able to carefully cut around the design, avoiding any stained areas. Then I went through my fabric stash and found all the different pieces of fabric in coordinating colors to go with the tablecloth design colors of lavender, light and dark olive green, teal, and pale blue.  I made a fully-lined tote bag, with the front of the bag being a quilt block using the tablecloth design I had fussy-cut and appliquéd onto the block.  Needless to say my sister-in-law was very touched to receive such a meaningful gift.  Since I don’t have any pictures of the bag I’ll just share a picture of the tablecloth design.

Fast forward many years since then and I still hadn’t done anything else with the tablecloths until recently.  I mentioned in a prior post this year that I purchased Electric Quilt 8 computer software and have been busy learning how to use it.  I’ve started off by creating some simple designs until I’m more familiar with the program.  Since I already have lots of different sketchbooks filled with years of my pencil designs I took one of those designs and worked it up on EQ8.  I was then able to print out the pattern and templates.  Then came the fun part of picking out the fabric to use for the star pattern I had created.  

As I stared into the closet at all my fabric stash my eyes fell upon a plastic container labeled “Julie’s tablecloth”.  Luckily after I had made the tote bag years ago I kept the tablecloth I had used in my sewing closet, hoping to use the rest of it again sometime.  To my surprise, when I looked inside the container there was also another one of the vintage tablecloths folded up beside the tablecloth I had previously used.  I must have put it in my sewing closet a while ago intending to cut it up and use it too.  And that is exactly what I did.

Here is a picture of the quilt block I made.  I call my pattern, “Julie’s Star”, for my late mother-in-law.  It still needs to be quilted and have the binding sewn on.  The vintage tablecloth is the center star floral design.  As you can see the colors are still quite vivid and pretty.  

This next picture is of the same star pattern using regular fabric from my stash to make the block.  I tried my hand at walking foot quilting and I like how very precise it looks, though it did take me quite a bit longer than free motion quilting does.  The binding is a deep aqua silk fabric with a lime green cotton beading.  I donated this quilt to my quilt guild to be sold at their booth at the La Jolla Festival of the Arts the first weekend in June.

Now that I’ve cut into and used two of the vintage tablecloths, I have plans to use all of the tablecloths in other projects, so stay tuned for future postings and pictures.