Tara’s Quilt Collection

If you love flour sack era quilts and appreciate hand quilting, you have got to see this quilt collection! I'll show you details from 11 quilts, along with ideas for recreating them.

Here's a little vintage quilt inspiration.

For the quilts, I'm including:

1. acrylic templates for you to recreate the pattern

1. templates sized for easy precut fabrics, like jellyrolls and layer cakes.

If you love cotton sack era prints and antique quilts, you will love this quilt collection!

Tara's quilt collection includes:

her own handstitched quilt

Hexagon patchwork

Maple Leaf

Clamshell

Grandmother's Garden

2 Scrappy Squares

Flannel Blocks

Dresden Plate

8 Point Stars

Drunkard's Path

My friend Tara did my hair this week. Her salon is attached to her home, and when she finished my hair, she asked, "Do you want to see my quilts?"

Yes, girl!

First I'll show you her antique quilt collection, then her famous handstitched quilt.

I'm including affiliate links to products that I think would help you recreate these quilt patterns. I receive a small commission if you choose to purchase through the links. Thanks for supporting the blog!

Patchwork Hexagon

This is the most varied scrappy quilt I've ever seen. Everywhere my eyes landed, I saw a new fabric. If I could design my own fabric, I'd recreate some of these prints!

This hexagon template has a cutting grid for multiple sizes of hexagons. You will need a small rotary cutter for small shapes.

Wanna cheat? Make an easier hexagon quilt with 10” precut squares! Try out this helpful big template for hexies out of layer cakes.

Drunkard’s Path, with only 2 colors

This is a gorgeous example of how striking a 2 color block can be!

I have a whole quilt's worth of orphan block scrappy drunkard's path squares. The fabric looks to be from the 1960s to me. If I ever complete it, it will be interesting, but it will never be this striking!

Here is a 4" drunkard's path template.

Here is a drunkard's path template for precut 10" squares!

Maple Leaf

These are such charming prints!

June Tailor has a cutting template for half square and quarter square triangles.

How about using design roll fabric to make these leaves?

Here is a jellyroll triangle template and jellyroll square template.

You are on your own for the stem. I couldn't find a maple leaf template with the stem.

Small Hand-sewn Clamshell Quilt Top

The clamshells are about 3”wide. Link to 3” stencil here

There are lots of blues and greens in this quilt top. I’d play that color scheme up if I were choosing the border, backing, and binding fabrics.

I have a large clamshell acrylic template for a someday quilt.

I think it would be fun to fussy cut Tula Pink animals in the clamshells.

Dresden Plate

Here is an acrylic template with the pointed tip for making the "petals" of the Dresden Plate.

This cutting/quilting set has 6 "petal" variations and circles.

Grandmother’s Garden

Sometimes you see this block with the outside rows of hexagons all done in the same color, like white, so that it reads as a border.

I love the extra colorful way these blocks are assembled, with no blank spaces in sight.

The time and patience involved in these tiny hexies always amazes me.

You can get paper piecing shapes, of course, but did you know that you can get fusible hexagon shapes that don't need to be removed?

Here is a jelly roll hexagon template for turning your 2.5" strips into hexies.

Reproduction Fabrics

Have I made you wish for some of these great vintage fabrics? Here are links to some fun cotton sack era fabrics.

True Fabrics 1930s Honey Bunch Precut Fabric (Fat Quarter Bundle) - 20 pcs in 18" x 22" cuts

Granny Chic - Fat Eighth Bundle (27 pcs) by Lori Holt for Riley Blake

30's Playtime Layer Cake®, 42-10" Precut Fabric Quilt Squares by Linzee Kull McCray

Scrappy Squares

Some tools to help with scrappy squares:

Half Square Triangle cutting template ruler

14" Square Fusible Interfacing Sheets

And more Square fun!

I snuck a picture of the cute duvet cover she had, because I think these would be good size rectangular flannel blocks to work with. I'm going to guess that these ranged from letter size paper to small placemat size blocks.

Oh My Stars!

Here is a diamond template for making these 8 pointed stars.

And finally, the entirely hand stitched quilt Tara made herself!

For years my mother has told me about Tara's special quilt, but I'd never seen it until today.

In the late 90s, Tara wanted to learn to hand-stitch quilts, and she found a class that was doing a sampler. She wanted hers to be bigger, so she quadrupled the sampler (and the work!) to make a lovely quilt.

The amazing part of Tara's quilt story is not only was she a new hand stitcher, she worked like mad to keep pace with the rest of the class. She said she spent many late nights sewing.

I love her stitched hearts on the borders.

She appliqued and quilted the white hearts so that they are a little puffy, which is adorable.

Here is a set of heart templates for machine quilting.

I enjoyed Tara's quilt collection so much. I appreciate her sharing it with me so I could share it with you! Thanks for reading!

Much Love,

Holly

P.S. After I left Tara's house I went to Barnes and Noble, where I found this wonderful quilt block book.

If you buy it used make sure you get the one with this cover, as it has the updated link to pdf templates for all the blocks.

The Farmer's Wife 1930s Sampler Quilt: Inspiring Letters from Farm Women of the Great Depression and 99 Quilt Blocks That Honor Them

Need more Vintage Vibe Quilts? Check out this book.