After Cassandra Siegenthaler’s mother died in June 2019, Ms. Siegenthaler, going through her things, found a tattered, threadbare wedding ring quilt from the 1930s tucked inside an antique cedar chest. “My mother’s family was estranged so I don’t really know a lot about the origins of the quilt, but I do know it was one of the only things from her mom that she had saved,” she said.

After seeing Lydia Morrow, a plus-size influencer and lingerie designer, model a jacket-and-shorts set sewn out of an old quilt on Instagram, Ms. Siegenthaler decided to send her family quilt off to a North Carolina seamstress who works under the name Emmy Ruth to be repurposed into a coat. “I wanted something that felt like a permanent hug from my mom all the time,” she said.

Ms. Siegenthaler is one of a growing number of people upcycling generations-old quilts into wearable garments. Emily Bode, a men’s wear designer, was an early proponent when she ushered in a renaissance for antique textiles with her homespun patchwork jackets and men’s wear oxford shirts circa 2018.

Source: New York Times

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