Wow!! Sounds like many of us are "sitting" on these vintage pillowcases! I too have probably 10 sets. Have to carefully look at all the suggestions. Must be something beautiful... just waiting to be made!

My Great Aunt use to make these so I had bunches in what her and my Gramma referred to as my Hope Chest. And through the years I have added to the collection I made several skirts for myself in the early 70's-which I still wear : ) I also made dresses for my 3 GDs which they all love and -even tho the oldest wears her's as tops now they are loved. I had thought about putting them in a quilt but felt they would be too girly. But my plan was to cut the case's 4 inches above the design-both layers stitched together at the cut and over lap them with a 3 inch exposure of the white. As I am writing it hit me this may even make a nice QAYG .. Well I hope you are happy - Now I have another idea for a little girls quilt to add to my list At this rate I will be here til I'm 130 yrs old LOL

My MIL embroidered lots of sets of these but they were for standard-sized pillows so I removed the embroidered hem-parts and put them on our kings w/ a pretty band. we DO use them and i love the look. If you decide to cut it, a crazy-patch type border around a center motif would be nice...or the reverse of that with crazy-patch in the center and a plain, but scalloped border? if you use mostly white and cream for the crazy patches and keep your patches fairly good sized, the embroidery will not be lost in the design.

Okay, this was the first quilt that I began working on when I retired in 2011. I had all of my grandmothers' pillowcases and wanted to make a quilt with them. It is all hand quilted after I carefully sectioned the embroidered ares off including the crochet detail on each of them. It took me almost a year to hand quilt them only because it was my first to do. Here are the pictures. Hope this might give you some ideas.

I have seen quilts made from vintage Hankies so there must be a way to make a quilt from these, although I don't know how. Please post again when you decide.

I have no ideas but they really are quite lovely!

center of crazy quilt Hmmmm.....

Craftsy was offering a free class, and I chose one taught by Cindy Needham. It was
wonderful and I thought to myself "She was so good, any other class I take, if not taught by her, could possibly be a waste." It's good to hear she's teaching another - this time I'll pay!
I forgot she did a lot with vintage linens, thanks for the reminder. I'm certainly going to check into it.

I kind of feel the same way, about cutting them up. Then I got to thinking, they're just going to sit in a bin in my closet, and there are some that will not be cut, so I've come to the conclusion whoever made them would rather they be enjoyed. That's kind of why I want to do something 'challenging, they are worth the work and I sort of owe the maker

I'm trying really hard to not turn the room into too feminine a place, but since the pillowcases have a history with our house and with his Grandma, who of the brothers he was the closest, I'm sort of getting a pass to use them. Plus, Grandma made the quilt too.