Category: vintage linens

Sewing To Go

I try to keep a travel sewing project ready at all times.  I like to have something on hand to do whether I have a few minutes to spend on the porch, or we are heading out for a day trip, or we are off on an adventure for days or weeks.

My latest hand piecing project has been these blue and brown spools.  When I don’t have another project for hand stitching, or for stitching on the go, I’ve been making spools.  I put them on the design wall yesterday to evaluate my progress. I arrange them to check color placement and balance before sewing more together, and to choose colors for the next batch to be prepared.  I had sewn twelve blocks together at first and liked them so well that I prepared more. And, now again, I need more.

These blocks are posing on linen tablecloth – another found treasure in an antique store heap. I do use the tablecloths for their intended purposes sometimes…I don’t cut them all up for sewing.

These are all linen.  Linen lends itself to hand piecing very well.  It’s easy to slip the needle through the fabric between the threads.  And hand fatigue is lessened if you can do that rather than pierce a tightly woven fabric.  These finish at 3″ square.

All this linen is vintage.  A lot is from worn clothing of mine and Jim’s, some vintage table linens, and some remnants I’ve found in antique stores.  Often there are boxes of linens almost being given away.  A stain here, a tear there; not a problem for me.  I’m going to cut it up or dip it in the dye pot anyway.

This project rides in this darling little vintage train case.  I loved that someone else had taken the time to clean it up and decorate it for me.  The exterior appealed, but when I opened it up and saw that blue bow on the fabric lining, well, I guess I looked at the price tag…but maybe not.  It had to be mine! I wrote about it earlier here: https://sandygilreath.com/on-the-road-again/.

The case holds some spool pieces (trapezoids and squares) that I’ve already cut out and pinned together as a block, some more pieces stamped on more linen, a pair of scissors with serrated edges, and my sewing roll. 

These pieces are prepared using a set of stamps for this purpose.  Talk about portable projects – the stamps and fabric ink can be carried along for the ride, too!

I used an old cutter quilt that had been dipped in the indigo dye pot as the basis of my sewing roll.  It has a pocket for a spool of thread or two, a place for my needle threader, thimble, some pins and needles.  

Maybe this need for portability came from the times I got last minute calls to head somewhere to help out with an ill or elderly relative.  Those hours in waiting rooms can be very long with empty hands.  So I still try to have some ready-to-go sewing at hand.  

Maybe we should take a trip!

Going Nuts

One of the things I do in the fall is collect acorns.  Every year I find myself coming home with a few perfect specimens after every day’s walk.  I add them to this bowl…eventually it is filled and I admire it through the winter.  In the spring, I throw them out.  In the fall, I begin again.

I don’t know exactly what the fascination is with acorns.  I grew up with pecan trees.  I gathered plenty of those in my childhood.  That was the source of my Christmas money every year.  Oaks and acorns came later in my life….

I’m still collecting acorns this year…but my latest fascination is with walnuts.

A few years ago, I attended a Folk Life Festival at a historic site in Tifton, GA.  Among the many delights there was a woman using walnut and indigo dyes to make the most beautiful yarn.  I was captivated.  From her I learned that walnut doesn’t need a mordant; that you collect the walnuts while in the green hulls; that they must ferment first, then be boiled before you can dye with them.

I followed those instructions and dipped a few things, but it was a lot of trouble.

I’ve experimented with brown commercial dyes before (that post is here) but the walnut gives a more pleasing color to me. I love the surprise of the varying richness based on the fabrics I use and the time it soaks.

This year, I gathered some black walnuts in their husks, put them in a bucket of water, covered it, and began the fermenting process.  After a couple of days, I thought, “I wonder what would happen if I dipped a piece of fabric in there as they fermented.”  A friend had brought me a pretty white cotton napkin and I submerged it among the walnuts.  In a few days, I had a nice bit of brown fabric.

I found another napkin, damask this time, and some laces…added those to the bucket for a few days.  Look at how gorgeous these are!  

I had a few pieces of vintage linen that I wanted to see what happened.  So I cut a few pieces of those, added a worn white cotton tea towel, and a skein of white embroidery floss.  I left these just a couple of days…not wanting to completely obscure the checked pattern in the linens.  Oh, my, I’m loving this!

The images above are before and after of dipped fabrics.

And of course you aren’t surprised that I photographed some of the browns with some blues. Earlier confessions of my love for this color combination are here and here. And, if that’s not enough, type “brown” in the search bar…there are more!

Now in the pot are a few more treasures.  I don’t remember exactly what I put in there, but do know that some old pink rickrack is getting new life.  Stay tuned.

And there are a lot of hickory nuts around here, too. Hmmmm….

As I wrote this and revisited the photos from the Folk Life Festival, I guess that’s what encouraged me to play with indigo dyes, too. There’s a whole category in the sidebar for that!

Old Fabrics and a Cow

We went to Lakewood last weekend and I found a few vintage treasures.

Some delicious homespun fabrics and a cow came home with me.

The definition of homespun fabric is fabric made at home; fibers spun and/or woven at home.  Synonyms include plain, unpolished, unsophisticated, simple, rustic.  Well, those words fit the life I love.

The simplicity of design is part of their appeal, I think.

The wear and the stains in these fabrics speak to me of people who used them in their everyday life.

These homespun fabrics were in Shelby’s collection.  Shelby’s son and daughter-in-law were delighted to sell them to me, seeing that I appreciated these pieces of history as Shelby had.  I didn’t know Shelby, but I like her.

Who else do you know who would delight in finding that the vintage fabric they bought was patched?  I was thrilled to discover this … more stories in the cloth.

And, this worn French tea towel came home with me, too.  Look at those vibrant stripes after washing a gazillion times!

Kristine was not at her booth yet – we were early browsers – but her treasures spoke to me

old clothespins in a BLUE bucket…what’s not to love?

I came home with more than the fabrics I bought, though.  I always find ideas to send my brain spinning…doors, buckets, buttons, even a beekeeper….

I’ve written about visits to Lakewood before: The button lady post is here. Why I love beekeepers is here. And another cow is here.

More Red

In the week leading to Valentine’s Day, there is red everywhere.  

A mockingbird is enjoying some holly berries in our yard.

And the nandinas are displaying lots of berries.  Yes, I know they are invasive, and they are bad for the birds, and we clear out some.  But my mother and Jim’s mother both loved their nandinas, so we don’t remove them all.  And the berries this year are big and red.

In my thoughts leading to a GBI Red project, I found these blocks that have a lot of red.  I like a focus block as a start, and sometimes an orphan block sparks an idea. The two blocks on the right are Maggie Bonanomi designs.

I have a couple of these Beligian linen tablecloths with red stripes.  I love red/white/tan as a color combination, so that leads me to see possibilities.

And, there is this.  Red and white is a tried and true combo.  And, in one of our forays through an antique mall, I found this linen tablecloth with embroidered red signatures.  I’d love to know the story behind it.  Was it used at an event like a wedding party, or a going-away party where guests signed the cloth? 

I presume Percival and Marian are husband and wife, but I don’t think they embroidered their names at the occasion.  Did they write their names on the cloth and then someone else did the stitching in red?  Some threads are heavier than others; some stitching is tight, some is loose.  So maybe more than one person did the embroidery – or one person might have varied her stitches to more accurately match the signature.

Interestingly, Jim has an ancestor named Margaret Hudson. We didn’t buy this in the area where his great-grandmother lived, but perhaps the antique dealer did…. Certainly that’s not a unique name, but to find this is quite interesting.

What will I do with this?  I’m not sure…but there’s a story there!

Even the Christmas amaryllis has decided to grace us with red once again…

Red Hearts

Everyone knows I love my blue fabrics, but this time of year, red always shows up in something. As Valentine’s Day approaches, red is on my mind.

I began making red hearts before Christmas this past year. This small bowl held the first grouping. As is the case with many explorations, I couldn’t stop until I played with more and more fabric combinations…so the little bowl grew, too.

No self-respecting lover of vintage linens can ignore the beauties that are red. The collection above includes tickings, vintage woven pieces, and a lovely cross-stitched tablecloth.

My shelves that hold commercial fabrics has plenty of red, too. I especially love the reds from French General. ( I used this collection almost exclusively in Miss Lily’s Baskets.)

Hearts are a favorite motif of mine, so there are hearts made of things other than fabric around the house, too. Above are a compressed wool one, an enameled bit of jewelry, a metal one, and a pottery heart.

In the photos above, you see the two sides of the collection of hearts. The usual “fronts” on the left, the “backsides” on the right.

Remember GBI Blues? This stack of delightful reds makes me think I need to work on a companion, GBI Reds. Uh-oh, we all see where this is going, don’t we?

I’ve written about hearts many times before. WordPress has changed some ways to label things, so I’ve added a category for “hearts”. If you click on that word in the category list on the right, you’ll see a listing of all posts about that topic. (I haven’t updated everything yet, but “hearts” and “red” are current.)

Before and After Blue

I recently promised more images of things from the indigo dye pot.  I love them all, but perhaps my favorite is the old embroidered tea towel you see above.  I bought this tattered piece at an antique store, and though the stitching is lovely, it was a bit pale, as you see in the next image.

The beauty of buying a towel with stitching at both ends is that I can play with one and save the other, so I at least have one intact bit of stitch with history to use.  So I ripped it apart, and dipped one in the dye pot.  Oh, my.  Isn’t it lovely?  Yes, now I know the other end just might go for a swim, too.

Here are more results from those recent days of dyeing.

a pile of linens fresh from the dryer
A beekeeper’s garden toile from a bargain bin is now happier in my stash – it’s blue!
some handwoven linen from Belgium overdyed…great for tea towels, placemats, who knows?

A bit of old barkcloth curtains is now brown and blue…my favorite combination!
And the blue roses I shared last week…they still thrill me. Here they are on a different background.

Blue Roses

On an antiquing trip before the stay-at-home life began, I bought some old fabric flowers.  I had been experimenting with making my own fabric flowers (which I wrote about here), so I thought this bouquet would allow me to examine someone else’s construction techniques.

The roses were dirty – stained and discolored.  But at $1, I didn’t mind that.

Last week I chose to spend a few of the last hot days of the year playing in the indigo dye bath.  One of the pieces that I dipped was this bunch of roses.  Aren’t they nice?

I dipped other things, too.  This shot of two lace coasters shows the difference in one dip in the dye and two.  This shot on the wooden table could have been part of the last post on Blue and Brown.

A vintage crocheted tablecloth went for a blue swim, too.

More blue things in the next post….

Blue and Brown

I love blues and browns and I especially love them together!  

Mother Nature loves blues that go to brown, too.  Look at this hydragangea in different stages of its blooming life this summer.  The final brown bloom hanging on is just as beautiful to me as the most cobalt of blues!

I recently made a slow stitched study in blues and browns.  

It started when I made this notebook cover as a gift.  The colors were so rich and entrancing that I wanted to use the leftover bits in another project.

The linen background came from some yardage a friend brought to our quilt guild from her mother’s stash.  The mother was downsizing and moving – we benefited from the clean out!

The bits of blues and neutrals were from my collection of old and new bits of fabric and lace.

The hexagons led to a bee theme of sorts.

I experimented with various weights and colors of thread, added beads and buttons.

This format, the rolled up collage, is a favorite of mine.  I used a thin layer of batting under the brown linen while doing all the stiching.  For a backing to cover the messy seed stitching, I added a bit of an indigo overdyed linen sheet.  I attached this with a tiny seed stitch with a fine thread; going only through the layer of blue and the batting.

Lockdown Learning

Friends I encounter many days on my morning walks.

During the five months that we’ve been staying at home, I’ve had time to explore new things.  

A zebra longwing in our front yard.

I’ve used my camera a lot, learning more about it, and even adding to the equipment inventory.  When we first learned that we were elderly and in the high risk group for Covid-19, I started sendng a morning photo greeting to our girls via text message.  Just a pretty way to say to them, “the old folks are fine,” so they could get on with their day without worrying about us.  I used my phone at first, learning new photo and editing capabilities.  

Then there were things the phone didn’t capture as well as I wanted, so I pulled out the digital mirrorless camera and learned more about it.  

We have several rabbits in our yard this year. So far, we’ve only SEEN them eating grass, but a few other plants have been mysteriously pruned.

When I needed a faster lens, or more “reach” for some of my subjects, I needed a better zoom lens.  

A woodland sunflower captured on a visit to Piedmont National Wildlife Refuge.

Looking through the lens of a camera changes things.  I’m not much of a gardener, but I needed to know the names of the plants I was photographing – because at least one of three recipients of these messages would ask.  And, distractions in the background weren’t good, so I pulled more weeds than I ever have before.  Who knew that such a simple act was so transformative?

A drawstring bag incorporating a bit of vintage embroidery and hand-dyed indigo linen.

Simple things are transformative in the sewing room, too.  I’ve used this time at home to explore more stitching opportunities, too.  I’ve finished several traditonal UFOs (and now I realize I need to photograph those), explored ways to include vintage linens in different projects, and reread many of the quilting books on my shelves.

Exploring more uses of ink on fabric inspired by Pam Holland’s draplique tutorial.

Though I could have done all this at any time, there’s something about not having plans to go anywhere, not having deadlines to meet, that is liberating.  I do miss seeing my quilting friends at guild and I miss teaching classes, but without those obligations, I’m enjoying researching new aspects of my own creativity.

A fabric flower adorns a notebook cover made from vintage linen fabric. I secured all layers using a double seed stitch to add texture. This new-to-me stitch is a fun one I will use again!

Garden Dance

Tawanda made an appearance in my last post.  I referred to her as my outdoor spirit doll.   Now she’s an element of an art quilt.  

We’ve been sheltering in place now for several weeks with no antiquing adventures to replenish my stash.  But, oh, how my collection has grown.

Since friends are at home, they’ve been cleaning closets and drawers and I’m reaping the rewards. One day the mailman brought a box from Alabama.  Susan had sent a box of tea towels, doilies, and dresser scarves her grandmother had passed along to her.  She kept the one she and her daughters would use, but sent others to me.  

This hankie’s image looks like the clematis blooming on our fence.

A friend is moving to another city and won’t be taking everything she has acquired over the years. She thought I could use a collection of women’s hankies. Oh, yes, indeed, I can.

This pile of blue from the fabric samples made my heart skip a few beats.

And Helen had a box of discarded drapery and upholstery samples.  Silk, linen, cotton, and wool.  Yes, wool.  I was amazed, too.  Lovely, lightweight, sheer wool.  I can’t wait to see how that behaves in the dye pot.

More drapery samples sorted by color…inspiration for a red quilt, I think.

And Joyce, a new friend who was at the last guild where I lectured has a box waiting for me filled with beautiful linens.  She no longer quilts, having moved on to a new focus in sewing, but has acquired beautiful pieces.  Once Joyce’s friends saw that she could give new life to their linens stored away in hiding, they shared with her.  “More than I can use in my lifetime,” she says.  So she is sharing with me.  Now that’s something to look forward to when this stay home order is lifted – a drive to collect that box!

Garden Dance celebrates Tawanda’s exuberance with Spring and all the treasures I described.  I sketched her image, transferred it to fabric, then collaged bits of embroidery from one of those silk samples I mentioned, vintage crochet, some recycled denim clothing.  A few buttons, and a lot of hand stitching brought it all together.  That pop of color at the top right is a piece of trim I bought in Paducah one year.  It was a dusty bolt of unused drapery trim, stained and hopeless looking – and containing some polyester, I’m sure.  But for some reason it spoke to me; maybe the many, many yards of something for little money.  But it loves new color.  I’ve painted some of it and the bit you see here has taken a dive in the indigo dye pot.

Tawanda is a sculpture made of rebar and cement and she’s nearly 20 years old.  She was one of those purchases that I thought, “I shouldn’t spend this much money on yard art, but I really want to take her home with me.”  She was at a local garden center and I think I saw her dancing there on a couple of visits before I succombed to her charms.

As is often the case, I used an old quilt remnant as the base for this collage. Notice the patch some previous owner had made – I was thrilled that I found a place to include it.

She has brought a smile to my face on countless days over these years and I’ve never regretted that expenditure. It seemed it was time to memorialize her in a quilt.

Her name, Tawanda, comes from the movie Fried Green Tomatoes.  if you are familiar with the characters in that production, you understand.

The quilt finishes at 12″ x 16″. Here you see the label attached to the “front” of the old quilt which is now the backside of Garden Dance. The faded homespun backing is one of my oft-used vintage backgrounds. I wonder if the woman who made this scrappy quilt years and years ago would approve of my use of her work. If she was a Tawanda herself, I think she would say, “You go, girl!”