When I was young, I very clearly remember a vintage fan quilt that my grandmother had. 

Whenever I think of vintage quilt patterns, I immediately think of that one quilt. With green centers, and floral pastel petals, it was the epitome of a vintage quilt pattern.

What is it about vintage quilt patterns that gives us such warm nostalgic feelings?

Maybe because they often remind us of a quilt our mother or grandmother had, or maybe it’s just the raw authenticity they have. 

Someone made it, by hand. The stories it could tell, and the love it’s experienced it doesn’t even need to be yours to feel it. 

But modern quilts these days are just that, modern, and sometimes we have an itch to create something from an earlier time

But when modern quilt designers are focusing on modern designs, and vintage quilt patterns were all printed on paper, if they were printed at all, it has become very difficult to find a printed version of those classic patterns today.

After searching high and low, the most reliable place I could find for the widest variety of vintage quilt patterns was in quilting books! 

While all of them are recreations inspired by vintage patterns from the past, you are almost guaranteed to get those nostalgic feelings of the past and find that vintage inspired quilt pattern you’ve been hoping to make. 

How do you make a vintage quilt

The part where you are physically making the quilt is the easy part! 

We have TONS of resources on all the steps you’ll need to learn how to make a quilt from scratch. 

To make a vintage quilt, you’ll need a couple of things:

• Know what kind of vintage quilt you are looking for
• Reproduction fabrics
• Vintage inspired pattern
• Time 

While you won’t necessarily be able to make it look aged, you can very easily make a vintage inspired quilt with similar pattern fabrics and patterns, and then over time as you use it, it will slowly build that aged and loved look that everyone loves in a vintage quilt. 

Starting with what kind of vintage quilt you are looking for is an important step. Quilting is an old hobby and its been around for centuries! 

Quilts from the civil war era and quilts from the 1930’s era have a very different feel to them. Think more neutral feedbacks and flannels vs. bright fun happy patterns. 

Knowing which type you prefer is a good place to start your vintage inspired quilting adventure. 

While we have the vintage inspired patterns covered in the remainder of the article, you won’t likely find many reproduction fabrics at your local big box store. 

Either head to your local quilt shop, or for the widest variety of options, be sure to check out Fat Quarter Shop for reproduction fabric collections. 

You can find their collections of 1900 reproduction fabrics here

And their collections of 1800 reproduction fabrics here

Depression Era: 1920s and 1930s quilt patterns

Quilting Those Flirty 30s

A mixture of appliqué and traditional piecing, Quilting Those Flirty ’30s has 11 different projects, mostly full quilts, but also including some smaller projects like table runners and aprons. 

Each project showcases beautiful reproduction fabrics inspired by the 1930s to help inspire your color choices and really display that 1930 design. 

This book has projects across all quilting levels so even if you are newer to the quilting world, this is a great option. 

See Quilting Those Flirty 30s on Amazon Here

Farmer’s Wife 1930’s Sampler Quilt

Farmer’s Wife 1930s Sampler Quilt combines quilting with history in this unique quilting book. 

While the book only makes one queen-size sampler style quilt, each of the 99 vintage designed blocks is inspired by a real letter from farm women through the Great Depression. The actual letters are included in the book along side the piecing and cutting instructions for each block. 

Those that have completed the full quilt find it a special journey back through time to create a project and follow along with the very personal lives of the farm wives at the same time. 

There are elements that are both foundation paper pieced and appliquéd as a part of this quilt so if this is a journey you are itching to take, be prepared for those block instructions as well as traditionally pieced rotary cut blocks. 

Shop Farmer’s Wife 1930’s Sampler Quilt here.

Candy Store: More 1930’s Quilts Made New

Candy Store is a fun collection of quilt designs that marries modern quilt patterns with 1930’s classics. Kay Conners and Karen Earlywine have put together this collection of 10 different quilt projects inspired by quilt designs that were discovered in old newspapers from the era!

These early patterns originally found in newspapers are included in the book with the patterns for the modern versions so you can see the quilts that inspired it all! 

This book includes a little bit of everything that was popular in the quilting era, applique, embroidery, yo-yos, and quilting by hand. In this book you’ll have plenty of opportunities to try less common quilting techniques that were commonly found in 1930s quilts. 

Shop Candy Store on Amazon here

Fancy to Frugal: Authentic Quilt Patterns from the 30s

Fancy to Frugal contains 10 authentic quilt patterns originating from the 1930s. The two authors Kay Connors and Karen Earlywine actively strive to make their quilts as closely as possible to the original methods used in the 1930s. 

This book has a spread of different quilting techniques popular from the time, a mix of applique, rotary cut quilts, templates, and embroidery, there is a little bit of everything to fully submerge yourself in the methods popular in this era. 

With all levels of skill being able to find projects in this book, there is a “Basics” chapter included to cover the specialty skills you may need to complete some of the patters such as y-seams, set-in-seams, and curved piecing.  

Fancy to Frugal is a great book if you want the full package, a start to finish vintage project. For each quilt pattern included in this book, intricate suggested hand-quilting patterns are paired to give you the ultimate vintage reproduction project.

1800 Civil War Patterns

Preserving History Patchwork Patterns

Although not strictly a book dedicated to the 1800s, Preserving History: Patchwork Patterns Inspired by Antique Quilts has a large array of projects spanning from the 1800s to the 1930s  with full detailed pattern instructions for each.

What is fun about this book is that not only does it give you details on how to create your own historic reproduction quilt, but it also provides guidance on the common quilting designs of the era specific to that decade.

Create your own reproduction historic quilt entirely era appropriate, from the pattern to the quilting with Preserving History: Patchwork Patterns Inspired by Antique Quilts.

Step Back in Time: Turn Reproduction Prints into Vintage-Inspired Quilts

If you enjoyed the 1930’s books that included historical letters and stories with the quilt designs, you’ll love Step Back in Time. This book includes 13 different quilt patterns that pair a true story from the 1800s to follow along with. 

In this book, they make a point to teach you new streamlined techniques to achieve the same classic patterns without all the fuss from back in the day.

Sometimes part of the struggle of making a reproduction quilt is understanding how color played a part in the quilt construction. With over 55 additional photos of reproduction quilts in addition to the actual patterns, Step Back In Time will give you never ending ideas for color combinations for your civil war quilt. 

The Big Book of Civil War Quilts 

The Big Book of Civil War Quilts contains over 50 different patterns all inspired by the historical time period of the Civil War. These traditional quilt patterns have all been made for this book using 1800 reproduction fabrics to really drive home the vintage feels that immediately flood you when you flip through the designs. 

This book has project of all sizes, mini quilts all the way up to large bed-sized projects with difficulty levels all over the spectrum. 

Most historic quilt books are simply look books to inspire you, however this book gives you every pattern for each of the 58 different patterns. 

When you are ready to finally dive into a historic Civil War inspired quilt, this is the book to use. 

Quilts of Love and Valor: Reproduction Quilts and an Authentic Civil War Love Story

Quilts of Love and Valor is an especially historic quilting journey to follow on as the books is interlaced with the true love story of a husband and wife through the Civil War. The book shares its 11 quilt patterns that were inspired by their real letters to each other back and forth of stories at the front line across the four years they were separated from the war. 

While making these quilts, you can follow along with their story and get a very real sense of what life was like while these quilts were being made back then. 

With clear instructions and a wide range of patterns there are some absolutely stunning patterns in Quilts of Love and Valor perfect for that collection of reproduction prints you’ve been eyeing.

Vintage Quilt Patterns for Beginners

Quilt As You Go Made Vintage

Quilt as you go is a fantastic quilting method for beginners because you bypass the need to baste and quilt your quilt. You do it all in one step!

This method allows you to slowly put together your quilt piece by piece so you can see it come together faster. 

There are a few different Quilt As You Go books by Jera Brandvig, however Quilt As You Go Made Vintage uses these fun quilt as you go techniques with vintage inspired design. 

Now you can make those amazing vintage inspired quilt while using fun modern techniques at the same time. 

Traditional Quilt Patterns for Beginners

Traditional Patchwork Quilt Patterns: 27 Easy to Make Designs

Traditional Patchwork Quilt Patterns is more of a “Choose your own adventure” type of quilting book. The book has instructions for 27 basic traditional quilt blocks such as the Dutchman’s Puzzle or Martha Washington’s Star and even provides permanent plastic templates for you to use to construct them with. 

It does not provide instructions past a single block though, so you can choose to make a sampler quilt across all 27 blocks in this book, or use a single block over and over throughout the quilt. 

Many of the blocks included in Traditional Patchwork Quilt Patterns end up creating an optical illusion when used in a single block quilt so get to know these classic traditional quilt blocks and find out why they’ve lasted so many centuries.

The Weekend Quilter: 25+ Fabulous Quilts to Make in a Weekend

If you are short on time, or just tend to lose interest in long quilt projects, The Weekend Quilter is the perfect solution. While it has a mixture of both traditional quilt patterns as well as some modern, all of the designs are intended to be able to be finished in a weekend!

Although they may not seem it, each of the designs uses quick piecing and short cutting techniques that save you hours of time in each step so you can finish these beautiful projects in record time.

The Weekend Quilter projects will take you all the way back to basics so if you are even a very beginner, this book will still be a great option for you. 

What are the oldest quilt patterns

While the exact quilt pattern is not actually known, it is guessed that the oldest quilt pattern is the crazy quilt pattern. 

The first quilts were made out of necessity. Quilting wasn’t a hobby at that point, it was a means to a warm bed at night. 

When you found that your kids grew out of clothes, or ripped clothes beyond mending, you couldn’t necessarily purchase both new clothes AND a bedspread. 

So those old clothes were cobbled together by chopping off the damaged parts and made into a bedspread. 

It wasn’t about an intentional design back then, it was about being creative with your resources to meet the needs of your family as much as possible. 

Since crazy quilts have no real intentional design, you can add any scrap you might have, in any shape it might come in, and Frankenstein together a quilt that will keep you warm. 

Interested in seeing what this looks like? It’s very similar to the stitch and flip method I used on this baby quilt. You can see it here!

How do you fix a vintage quilt

The best way to repair a quilt is to make a patch of blocks recreating the original design of the damaged area. 

It’s easiest to cut away more of the quilt to give yourself a regularly shaped area to patch – typically a square or rectangular patch. 

The patch will have to be hand sewn to the original quilt and quilted over using the original quilting design. 

Amy Schelle from Sewn Handmade has a great in-depth tutorial on the quilt repairing process, you can see the full tutorial here. 

It’s important to know going in, no matter how you repair it, you will not be able to make it invisible.

You can either choose to try and blend it as much as possible using similar reproduction fabrics, or you can patch it with something entirely different to display it as a battle scar for future owners. 

Or if you don’t intend to actually use the quilt, and keep it more as a display item, you can just leave the quilt as is. 

Depending on who made it, what it might be worth, and what you use it for, you may have different preferences.

An 1800s quilt you acquired from an auction with some bumps and bruises may not be the best candidate for fixing, however, that old quilt your grandmother made that your toddler decided to practice using scissors on may be the perfect candidate for fixing.

What you decide is up to you! 

What is a depression quilt – A detour through history

A depression quilt was the name that defined any quilt made in the 1920s-1950s during the Great Depression. 

These quilts are generally easy to spot as the trend of the time was a scrappy pastel color scheme with lots of different patterns. 

The trend started before the depression and carried straight through until after the depression so it’s not always easy to define exactly how the Depression Era really influenced quilting designs.

Although most people are under the impression that the quilts were scrappy because quilters were using whatever pieces they could find, the scrappy trend was actually inspire of the frugal times. 

Including as many fabrics as possible in your quilt was actually more of a status symbol than a necessity. The more fabrics you included, the more fabrics you could afford, the better off you were (or appeared).

It wasn’t until the height of the Depression when feedbags and more creative fabric recycling occurred that the frugality of the Depression Era really started to enter the quilting world. 

These can be quite hard to spot though as the same design trends existed before an after the actual Great Depression time era. 

So since there is a window of about 30 years where we can’t specifically nail down a year based on pattern or style, categorizing them all as a Depression Quilt is the easiest way to define them. 

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