Vintage Hankies Baby Quilt Pattern

For a while I was a big vintage hankie and fabric collector. I love, love that kind of stuff! I have more than enough and don’t pick up as much as I used to, but they are still fun to search for during the summer at yard sales.
At one point I had made this, but not sure that I ever shared the pattern.
For the background I chose to use some vintage sheets. Mixed in with the hankies it’s super fun. If you’d like though you could make it with more updated and modern fabric. A plainer fabric might be a good option too, so the hankies show off a little more.

Materials Needed:
vintage hankies
vintage fabric – background (vintage is optional) — to find out what size you will need for the background, you will need to measure each of the hankies.  Your background will need to be 4″ larger than the largest hankie.  That will give you 2″ extra on all sides of the hankie.      Cut all your background pieces this size.

fabric for the border & backing

batting

Purchase the pdf Pattern here  —> Hankie Quilt Pattern

Vintage Hankie Baby Quilt Pattern~

1)  Fold in half twice so you have a small square.  Iron so you make creases

2)  Repeat this with each hankie

3)  Open the squares and center the hankie on top of the background fabric– you can layer more than one hankie if you’d like.  Some really small ones look great inside a larger hankie.

4)  Sew all the way around the hankies.  I sewed just inside the hankie edge and followed the rounded corner if there was one.  If you’d like you could tack a few stitches on the crochet edge if you were worried about it catching.

5)  Cut the square twice– in the center of each side

6)  Take the new smaller squares and mix them up.  Lay them out into rows and sew them together.  They will not match up.  The hankies are going to vary in size, plus the edging will be all different.  It’s not worth trying to make them fit together- it would drive you crazy!

7)  Sew the squares of 4 together– for the baby quilt you will need 4 large blocks.

8)  Measure the sides and cut 2 strips of fabric this length X 3″ – sew to the sides.  Repeat for the top and bottom.

9)  Layer your backing, batting and finished quilt top.

10)  With thick thread, hand quilt some stitching around the blocks

Purchase the pdf Pattern here  —> Hankie Quilt Pattern

You could use your grandmas vintage hankies for this– make a small heirloom quilt.  Would be kind of fun to showcase some embroidery hankies, crochet edged hankies, or tatting.

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