My third Make Nine finish: mending a vintage quilt

In 2023, I put a new binding on this vintage quilt. During the recent Winter of Care and Repair Challenge, it received a few more patches and mends. I’m certain it won’t be the last time this vintage quilt gets an appliqué over a worn area.

Vintage quilt.

Collaborating with Anonymous

I have a fondness for this quilt! It’s been on the bed for several years. I like its scrappy, make-do, improvisational nature—and that of its maker. While I don’t know who made the quilt, I’m happy to care for it, mend it, keep it in good condition, and preserve the original maker’s work. A happy collaboration with an anonymous quilter!

The quiltmaker had an interesting stash of fabrics to work with for this scrappy quilt.

The original quiltmaker evidently had an eclectic stash of scraps and apparently some yardage (the red and blue prints used for the alternate blocks) for this project. I’m guessing the prints are probably from the 1940s and 1950s. Some fabrics (especially the stripes) appear to be from shirts. The feed sack backing could possibly be from an earlier time. 

Feed sack backing of a vintage quilt.

I came to find out through making a few of the repairs, that the middle layer is not a batting. It is some sort of woven textile or a blanket. Another make-do attribute of this quilt! So even though this quilt is thin, it’s heavier than one with a cotton batting.

Mixing in new fabrics

On a sales call earlier this year, I saw a quilt displayed in a quilt shop. Several of the fabrics had a retro vibe to them… which reminded me of my vintage quilt. Walking the aisles of the shop, I perused all the bolts of fabrics and purchased several prints that I thought had similar colors and patterns reflective of the fabrics in my vintage quilt.

Purchased new fabrics (left). The tiny floral (far right) is from my stash.

Several of the fabrics I chose are from fabric collections that I rep. It was interesting to focus on individual prints and pull them away from the other coordinating fabrics. Taken out of their original context, they took on a new meaning for me.

The mends

Here are photos of the worn and torn places of my vintage quilt, along with the mends that were made.

Holes and worn areas.

I actually had to unpick part of the binding to make the repair to this area.

Preparing the appliqué patches and the unpicked portion of the  binding.

Patched and mended.

Worn area.

Appliquéd patch with new hand quilting.

After appliquéing the patches, I followed the existing lines of hand quilting to quilt, secure, and blend in the new patches.

A Make Nine 2025 finish

2025 Make Nine tracker with the Mend/Upcycle prompt. March 30, 2025.

One of my Make Nine 2025 prompts is a Mend/Upcycle prompt. I’m counting the mends on this quilt, as well as my participation in the Winter of Care and Repair, to fulfill this prompt. 

Now that I have a curated bundle of vintage-inspired fabrics, however, I’m itching to follow Anonymous’ block pattern and make a few blocks of my own. Maybe coordinating pillowcases with a scrappy cuff are in my future. That would be a fun, easy, and purposeful project.

The 2024-25 Winter of Care and Repair concludes

Participating in the Winter of Care and Repair Challenge, held from the Winter Solstice to the Spring Equinox, makes me mindful of taking time to extend the life of textiles, home goods, garments, and other useful items. It also makes me keenly aware of upcycling and recycling efforts, keeping things out of landfills, and minimizing unnecessary waste.

The toe of one sock mended with a wool mending thread.

How I fared with the Challenge 

This Challenge started last December and ended this month on March 20, the Spring Equinox. My pledge for the 2024 - 2025 included textile mends and repairs, upcycling and repurposing, organizing my fabric stash, using scraps (rather than tossing them), and office tidying.

The zipper seam in a pillowcase

Mended zipper seam.

Textile mending

This winter, I did manage to mend a few garments and household textiles:

• mending a hole in a pair of socks,
• repairing the zipper seam of a pillowcase,
• reinforcing seams in pants and shorts,
• mending several worn or torn patches in a vintage quilt.

Holes and shredded areas of a vintage quilt.

Appliquéd patches over the worn areas.

Upcycling/recycling

I upcycled/recycled old paper sales materials and paper catalogs into two Junk Journals. I gifted one to my cousin and used the other in this year’s Junk Journal January Challenge. I continue to use my junk journal for slow drawing, watercolor play, and hand lettering.

Junk Journal made with recycled papers.

Here is a flip-through of one of the junk journals.

Fabric scraps

I didn’t get much fabric stash organizing done, but did complete 4 scrappy kitty quilts in December and donated an additional 16 kitty quilts to two local animal hospitals at the end of February. The quilts were made of orphan quilt blocks [a repurposing effort], discontinued fabric samples, fabric scraps, and the bindings were pieced and scrappy as well.

Scrappy quilt tops for charity quilts.

Two additional kitty quilts went to our gang of outside tuxedo kitties—to care for the fuzzy ones at our house.

Scrappy quilt bindings.

I’m also using fabric bits and scraps from various improv quilting projects in this year’s 100 Day Project, the 2025 Stitch Book with Ann Wood. Here is one of the pages.

A page from my 2025 Stitch Book using fabric scraps.

Office tidying

The response to this goal wasn’t as prolific as I had hoped for the home office, but I did do a a clean-up of my “mobile office” (my car). The vacuuming efforts in the back where my sample suitcases go, and the carpets in the front seats were welcome sights!

Care and Repair take-aways

Jeanna, from The People’s Mending [@thepeoplesmending], is the creator of the Winter of Care and Repair challenge. She wrote a synopsis of her 5-year experience and posted a list of take-aways. The ones I resonate most with are:

• It’s going to take less time than you think.
• It’s going to take more time than you think.
• If it’s worth repairing, it’s worth repairing right… even if you have to redo it.
• Repairing is caring.
• To speed up, slow down. Or, “the hurried-er I go, the behind-er I get.”
• Practice makes better: the more you do, the more you learn, the better you get.
• You can do anything, but not everything, and that’s OK.

I try to remember to give myself the grace to do what I can. Because all the small acts do add up.

Happy Christmas and a mend-ful New Year

Out of the gate for a Winter of Care and Repair is this pillow that had literally busted at the seams. It’s been mended and in use again... in time for the holidays.

Mended tree pillow back in service.

This pillow is a long-time, scrappy favorite of mine. It was a project I made as a beginner quilter. The original fabrics for the sashing, border, and the pillow back were solids—and likely from a source that was used before I knew about, and understood the value of, “quilt shop quality” cottons. As you can see, the fabrics didn’t hold up as long as the rest of the pillow.

Unstitching and removing the patchwork from the pillow top.

Disassembly and the mending process

I decided to save just the center patchwork and put it into a new setting. It didn’t seem prudent to unpick the other seams and try to salvage the lesser-quality solid fabrics. (They will find their way into another scrappy project.) 

For the new borders, a cotton blender—a “holiday red” (merlot is the color name) from the Canvas collection [Northcott Fabrics]— was my choice for the replacement fabric. 

Unstitching the center patchwork from the old pillow.

After unpicking the patchwork from the borders, doing a little “quilty math” to fit the size of the pillow form correctly, the new strips were cut and sewn to the patchwork.

New borders added.

I sew rounded corners on pillows so they won’t be so pointy once the pillow form is inserted.

Sewing rounded corners.

A new pillow backing (I use the overlap style) was added using the same Canvas blender fabric. The old pillow form was inserted, and the tree pillow is like-new again.

Mended pillow.

The Winter of Care and Repair is off to a productive start. Happy patchwork for a happy Christmas!

The winter solstice and a season of textile Care and Repair

Today is the shortest day of the year—the winter solstice. Tomorrow, there will be a wee bit more daylight… and a wee bit more the following day… until the spring equinox. The winter solstice also marks the beginning of Winter of Care and Repair.

Winter of Care and Repair Challenge for 2024 - 2025.

A Winter of Care and Repair pledge

My pledge for this year’s three-month Winter of Care and Repair Challenge is much like last year’s. The main focus is on textiles with the addition of household care.

• textile mending and repairs
• upcycling and repurposing
• organizing my fabric stash
• minimizing scraps
• and this year, an effort to find time to tidy up my home office.

To start off the Care and Repair season, I’m donating four scrappy quilts to our local veterinarian and animal hospital.

Scrappy quilts for cats and dogs.

I use improv patchwork and fabric scraps to make these little quilts for the animals at the vet. The quilts are fun to make, stress-free, and go to both my Care and Repair pledge to repurpose and upcycle as well as providing care for the four-legged fuzzy ones.

Scrappy quilt backs.

Two of these quilts have flannel backings.

Free-motion quilting.

The quilts are free-motion quilted and the bindings are attached by machine with a narrow zigzag stitch.

Machine bindings using a narrow zigzag stitch.

The mending pile

I have begun gathering items in need of mending or repair. The Care and Repair Challenge is a perfect motivation to keep household items, clothes, and other textiles in good working order. 

 

Getting ready for “A Winter of Care and Repair”

A Winter of Care and Repair. I love this Challenge! I participated last year and it was very gratifying. The online Challenge is hosted by Jeanna @thepeoplesmending and takes place from the Winter Solstice (December 21, 2024) to the Spring Equinox (March 20, 2025).

Winter of Care and Repair 2024-2025

Make a plan, set some goals

During this season-long project, participants are encouraged to design their own parameters/plan/outcome/pledge that suits their lifestyle while focusing on mending, repairing, and caring for their belongings or themselves. I generally focus on textiles—mending, up-cycling, recycling, prolonging their life, and keeping them out of landfills. In general, being more sustainable by caring for existing items rather than buying new.

One of the mending projects slated for this year’s Winter of Care and Repair Challenge.

How the WOCAR Challenge began… and what’s new

Jeanna started the Winter of Care and Repair Challenge in 2020 during the Covid 19 lockdown as a way to provide some semblance of structure and control during an uncertain time. This year, she’s added another element to the concept. She says, “The winter of 2024/25 feels like the beginning another period of frightening uncertainty… with the future of human rights and environmental action looking bleak, I’m expanding the very lose parameters of WOCAR to include ‘something within the participants’ circle of control’ rather than just belongings.”

In the past, the Challenge focused on the care and repair of garments and belongings. This year, she’s including other aspects to her personal plan that are “in her circle of control.” 

Need ideas?

Visit @thepeoplesmending for ideas for creating a plan or your personal plan or pledge. In the past, some participants have designed their Challenge project to focus on things such as:

• tending a garden and prepping the ground for the next season’s planting,
• repurposing or repairing household items (rather than disposing of them),
• de-cluttering a room/garage/house,
• creating habits to improve personal health and well-being.

Whatever works for your schedule, lifestyle, and goals… A Winter of Care and Repair is the perfect opportunity in which to apply them!

 

I’ve notified members of my household to begin setting aside things for the mending basket.

Winter of Care and Repair Challenge results, a Make Nine finish

The Winter of Care and Repair Challenge is coming to a close on March 19, the Spring Equinox. In recapping my mends and recycling efforts, I was very pleased with the number of accomplishments.

Winter of Care and Repair Challenge. December 21, 2023 - March 19, 2024.

Care and Repair Pledge

My Winter of Care and Repair pledge was focused on textiles. It included these categories:

• mending and repairs, 
• upcycling/repurposing, 
• organizing my fabric stash, and 
• finding ways to minimize scraps.

Mending and Repair

When you sign up to participate in a Challenge, and decide upon your pledge, there’s an on-going awareness of your goals. This definitely made me more involved. One of my successful categories from the pledge was Mending and Repair.

Replacing missing buttons on two shirts.

Finishes include:

• abundant button replacements—shirt fronts, shirt cuffs, a jacket—on 5 different garments. (When you ask family members if they have anything that needs mending, the items come out of the woodwork!) One garment was mine and the rest were my husband’s. 
• mending a collar on a jacket,
• mending a burn hole in a dish towel, 
• mending the patch pocket on a pair of pants, and
• mending a seam in the armscye of a me-made Collins Top.

Mending the inside collar of a jacket.

Upcycling and Repurposing

This was another successful category. I've recycled orphan and worn out socks into 7 Loopy Loom woven hot pads.  

Upcycling old socks using the Loopy Loom.

Upon discovering several old knitting swatches, I decided to frog (un-knit) a few of them and repurposed the yarn in another knitting project. I've completed 3 knitted dish cloths and am working on a pair of placemats with the frogged yarn and leftovers.

Recycling the yarn from knitted gauge swatches.

Minimizing Fabric and Yarn Scraps

I continuously work through leftover yarns and fabric scraps in my stash. Completed projects during Winter Care and Repair include four quilt tops for kitty (charity) quilts—made with fabric scraps.

Scrappy kitty quilt top.

A pile of discontinued fabric samples was donated to the Friends Life Community, an organization at which my buddy, Jim Sherraden, volunteers as an art teacher.

Discontinued fabric scrap donation to Friends Life Community.

Yarn scraps are being knit into a pair of placemats. One placemat is complete and the other nearly finished.

Scrap yarn knitted placemat.

Organizing the stash

Even though I was unable to attack a big organization project, small dents were made in the yarn and fabric stashes through this online Challenge. I found and repurposed the knit gauge swatches and used up scraps for the charity quilts. 

On a positive note, I will say that various articles of clothing got mended much quicker and thus back into circulation because of the Challenge. The Challenge created more focus on the idea of valuing what we already own instead of discarding and buying new. I'm happy about that.

The second Make Nine finish for 2024

This online Challenge is fulfilling my Make Nine 2024 Online Challenge prompt. I continue the search for creative scrap projects for fabrics and yarn. And I've also set aside other items for mending and repairing.

Make Nine 2024 tracker.

Winter of Care and Repair was a worthwhile Challenge! Thank you to Jeanna Wigger at @thepeoplesmending for hosting this Challenge.

Mending a burn hole in the red dish towel

The Winter of Care and Repair Challenge started on December 21 with the Winter Solstice. My latest mend for this Challenge was on a dish towel that “got too close” to one of the burners on the stove. (No fire, but it left a sizeable hole in the towel.)

My Winter of Care and Repair, December 21 2023 - March 19, 2024.

Goals for my Winter of Care and Repair

The parameters I set for myself in the Winter of Care and Repair Challenge focus on textiles:

• mending and repairing
• upcycling/repurposing
• organizing my fabric and yarn stash (not making much progress with this goal)
• finding ways to minimize scraps.

As part of my commitment to this 3-month Challenge, I was determined to mend the burn hole in the red dish towel. I decided to use a patch rather than try a weaving mend.

A burned hole in the dish towel.

The repair process

After brushing off the singed part, I traced the shape of the hole on a piece of paper. 

The hole was almost 1.5”.

I decided to use knit fabric for the patch instead of a woven so I didn’t have to turn under the edges.

Making a paper template for the patch.

The patch was cut about an inch larger (all around) than the paper template (the size of the hole). The patch was pinned to the right side with another fabric scrap placed on the under side to conceal (sandwich) the hole. Five additional circle patches were added to the towel to make the appliqué circles look “intentional”—like a “design element”—rather than a single patch over a hole.

Pinning various circle patches to embellish (and repair) the towel.

Using matching cotton embroidery floss, the patches were secured with a running stitch—starting on the outside of the circle and moving toward the center in a circular design. After stitching, the patches were trimmed closer to the stitching line.

Running stitches secured the circles to the towel.

The matching red embroidery floss blended with the fabrics. The stitching added a textured pattern to the appliquéd circles.

Appliquéd circles embellish the repaired dish towel.

My red dishtowel is now back in circulation! It’s shown here with three hand woven sock coasters. These coasters/trivets are made by upcycling socks with the Loopy Loom. They are quick and fun to make and address another category (upcycle/recycle) of my Care and Repair effort.

Newly repaired towel with woven sock coasters.

A Winter of Care and Repair Challenge

The topics of mending (visible and invisible), maintaining and caring for our wardrobes, sustainability, and eliminating waste from fast fashion are very prevalent these days. Jeanna Wigger, @thepeoplesmending, has proposed a winter "Call to Action" to promote the idea of repairing and caring for clothes, accessories, and other items with the "Winter of Care and Repair" project. Care to give it a go?

Winter Care and Repair Challenge 2023
#winterofcareandrepair2023

How to participate in Winter Care and Repair 2023

Jeanna suggests customizing the project to your individual needs, skill level, and degree of participation. Participants can use this project as a framework for a personal Mending To-Do list. The project, or Challenge, also serves as a a good motivator as others will be participating—and there is strength (encouragement) in numbers.

I'm going to participate with a focus on textiles:

• mending and repairs, 
• upcycling/repurposing, 
• organizing my fabric stash, and 
• finding ways to minimize scraps. 

I've read other great Challenge pledges that include maintaining or repairing things beside textiles and garments, such as:

• tending a garden and prepping it for the next season's plantings,
• de-cluttering a room/house/garage,
• repurposeing or repairing (rather than disposing of) other household items,
• strengthening habits to promote personal health and mental well-being.
  
  

The timeframe: Solstice to Equinox

The Winter Care and Repair project goes from the Winter Solstice to the Spring Equinox—December 21, 2023 to March 19, 2024. 

Mend/Repurpose prompt from Make Nine 2023

I'll incorporate the Winter of Care and Repair pledge into my 2024 Create Daily practice. In my past three Make Nine Challenges in 2021, 2022, and 2023, I've included prompts related to this topic so I feel I'm cognisant of this practice. (See my previous Make Nine prompt pages in this blog post.)

Do you have a mending pile? 

This is is the perfect project to whittle down that mending pile! I have a few items in need of stitching and mending and there are likely others that will pop up between now and the Spring Equinox. I like that this project is also a good reminder that "loved clothes last" and a quick mend will keep them in circulation much longer. 

A stitch in time saves nine,
               ... and keeps textiles out of landfills and the waste stream.