Tag: vintage linens

Dancing Hearts

Old spools, old quilts, old ticking, old buttons, memories in old clothes.  What’s not to like?

Put them all together in a new format.  Unroll to see fresh delight every time.

It seemed a perfect place to collect some old reds and make a Valentine’s project.

The old quilt was soiled and tattered, tan and white with red accents.  I love that the indigo dye subtly changed the backgrounds, but left the reds RED.  

The unfurled piece measures 7” x 30”.

I love the rolled format for story quilts.  The first one I did is the one above. And, I’m working on another one now. It has hearts on it, too.

Dipping in the Indigo

I recently gave a talk to a guild about using indigo fabrics in quilts.  I shared old quilts and new ones I had made.  I included purchased indigo fabrics from Africa (again, both old and new ones), commercial reproductions of indigo fabrics, and fabric I had dipped in the indigo dye bath myself.

Once home, I rearranged quilt displays so I could visit with these pieces more.

And, with warmer temperatures outside, I knew it was time to resurrect the dye pot and get busy.

So for the past couple of days, I’ve been dipping. Yes, even a lampshade.

This is a tablecloth my mother crocheted for me in 1985.  It was beige.  I would see examples of this in antique stores and think how beautiful these objects would be if they were blue.  

So I bought one to test my theory.  I dyed this one on Tuesday and I liked it so well that I dared to dye Mama’s handwork on Wednesday.

I dipped a lot of other fabrics each day, too.

Napkins are always a favorite.  The group pinned together is 9 matching linen napkins that had never been used.  All the same size, I think they will be great backgrounds for appliqué.


A printed black on white linen skirt takes the dye beautifully.  And, one of the most delightful pieces I dipped is a piece of Moda’s new line of barkcloth.  It’s 100% cotton, but beefier than quilting cotton, and dipped and washed and dried, it is soft and buttery and ravels beautifully.  Raveling well is important to me.

I’ve joined a new online group with Jude Hill, her latest adventure in soulful stitching.  Ragmates in this journey with me can expect to see some of this dye lot in future explorations.  I’ve written about Jude before in many posts, but she is the one who convinced me that I could explore indigo dying.  Thanks, Jude.

Loving Blues

My latest quilt project is finished and has been on an outing already.  Loving Blues rode with us to 7th Street Salvage today.  Coincidentally, perhaps, everything we liked was either blue or white.

Catherine graciously permitted me to pose my quilt in several spots, and oh, what fun we had!  Blues posed on a mantel,

on a group of bathtubs (love the blue oars, too),

on a dry sink (I’m really in love with that pump!),

and outside on a precious little structure.  Those blue tin tiles are fabulous everywhere, aren’t they?

Once home, Blues posed with the treasures we brought home.  The blue sphere is a duckpin bowling ball.  The pins and balls on display reminded Jim of playing this game at Indian Springs State Park during his childhood.  The coloring on this ball meant that it was coming home with us! (and yes, those are blue metal tiles you see in the corner.)

The sun was out for a few minutes, so we let Blues swing in the breeze. 

Yes, the vest I am wearing had scraps that found their way into this quilt, too.

Quilt details:  It measures 40” x 60” finished.

This has memories stitched together, some fabrics held my memories, some held memories of other hands, other lives. All fabrics were either vintage linens I had purchased, many of them overdyed in indigo, or bits of clothing from my closet and Jim’s.

There are fabrics from several of Jim’s shirts, some from shirts of mine. The V is made from a homespun cotton fabric I bought at Elco Antique Market in the 1980’s, my mother made a jumper for me and I wore it for years. Now some of that precious find lives in this quilt.

I changed the name.  That earlier post was called Loving Hearts, and I thought that would be the finished title.  But, no, the quilt said it was about Loving Blues.  Ok.  The label is a big heart cut from an overdyed linen tablecloth remnant with beads added.

Like memories that vary; some bring smiles, some bring tears; these fabrics differed, too.  Some light weight linen from my breezy summer shirts was soft and stretchy.  Others, like the ticking used to make the letter “E” and the handwoven toweling used for the “L”, were thick, made to be durable for centuries.  That made quilting interesting.  I chose a meandering vine with hearts.

And the pins and silicon tips I mentioned in this earlier post –  they are great!  I feared that they might make maneuvering the quilt under the sewing machine a bit trickier, but, no problem!  And the pinching motion necessary with safety pins, which is hard on arthritic hands, is gone.

Loving Hearts

So the obsession for blue hearts outgrew the bowl. Bowls, actually; several are full.

It seemed the natural thing to do was to make more of those hearts to put in a quilt. I continued using bits of vintage linens, remnants of old clothing filled with memories, and remnants of overdyed linens.

I cut free-form hearts and stitched them to bits of background fabric and placed them on the design wall. Then a couple of days of trimming and filling in blank spaces with other beloved blue fabrics, and a quilt top was born.

Now it’s pin basted together, ready to quilt.

One of the old remnants I used included dozens of hearts like these and at least 40 of these birds. I found this gorgeous tablecloth last summer when I wrote about tattered treasures here. I didn’t appreciate the work some woman had done until I cut it up and stitched through the fabric myself.

It is a heavy cotton fabric, densely woven; what my mother would describe as “tough as pig iron” to stitch through. I realize now that the phrase makes no sense regarding stitching, but that’s what she said.

The woman who stitched all these crosses must have had sore fingers. Maybe she was a friend of Margene‘s, devoted to needlework, determined to finish.

The tablecloth was used, though. I know because of the stains and holes I found in it. That’s a good thing. I love stains and holes because I feel less guilty about cutting the piece apart and reusing the decorative stitching. And, I like knowing that the piece has stories embedded in the threads.

There are other stories in this collection of threads, as well. I bought some indigo and white homespun fabric at Elco Antique Market more than 30 years ago. My mother used it to make a dress for me. Now parts of it are in this quilt. Some of Jim’s shirts and some of mine have found their way here too.

And, those of you who make quilts are wondering about those blue dots and straight pins. I’m trying something new here, pin basting without having to close and then reopen safety pins. I like the pinning part. I’ll report on the removal process once the quilting is done.

A later post has been added with photos of the finished quilt and my verdict on the pinning dilemma. It’s here.

Indigo Playtime


Bundle of doilies at the flea market: $1

Others acquired at more junk piles later in the day:  total $5

One hour of dipping and rinsing, Maytag at work, some drying on the rack, then this:  Priceless!

Someone, or several someones, had a bunch of doilies and such that they didn’t want.  They might have a tiny hole or a stain or two, but in the donation pile they went.  I brought them home, dumped them on the table, and photographed them.  The first ugly photo above  is the $1 pile.

Another couple of pieces came from another store, the hankie with the hideous yellow lace was $1, a tea towel was $1.  You see those in the second ugly shot.

I had a fresh vat of indigo dye that I had mixed for friends earlier in the week, so I wet the fabrics and began dipping.

The dye appears green and when the fabric is first removed from the vat, it is green.  But, exposed to air, the chemistry magic takes place.  The oxidation process makes the color change to blue right before your eyes.

This photo shows the first few pieces as they oxidize.  The one on the bottom right is freshest from the dye vat, the others have been out in the air from 1 to 5 minutes longer.

One of the beauties of overdying old linens is the reveal on embroidered pieces.  White-on-white embroidery is beautiful in its own way, but, the dye takes it to another level.  This huck cloth pillow sham (an earlier find) is a great example of that.

Damask tablecloths and napkins are amazing, too.  The subtle color changes from the differing directions of thread in the weave is not subtle after dyeing.  This tablecloth (a piece from an earlier dyeing session) also has variations because I left some areas bundled up so less dye reached the fibers and/or less oxidation took place.


And, I thought the two yellowed tea towels I dipped yesterday were plain.  But, no.  Once I hung them up, I saw patterns woven in the fabric.  Amazing!

It’s addictive; this blue magic.  Every stage is exciting.  Seeing the color change.  Seeing what’s left after rinsing (the pale blue trim was dipped three times, but because it’s not a natural fiber – has a lot of polyester in it, I think – it never becomes the deep blue like the others).  Playing with it after it’s dried.  Then planning how to incorporate it into a piece of fiber art.  All stages are fun.  

And, that, for certain, is priceless.


The same mass of textiles, now blue.  Variations in color come from different fiber content of the pieces and the number of times I dipped them.

I’ve written about the process of indigo dyeing before:  several posts, in fact.  You can click on links here and here to see earlier posts…or if you are reading this later than the original post,  type “indigo” in the search box and you’ll find more with photos of finished projects using indigo-dyed pieces.

Margene’s Tablecloth

Margene was a master seamstress.  She made clothing for herself and her daughters.  She made a shirt for her husband once, but decided they could afford to buy men’s clothing.  So the husband and son wore all store-bought clothes.

Margene made her kitchen curtains, recovered chair cushions, pieced worn out clothing into quilts.  Most of this stitching, like the girls’ dresses, was done on the sewing machine.  It was faster, more efficient for the necessities of life, but Margene needed handwork to keep her busy after the supper dishes were done.

She did a little knitting and crocheting, but her real love was pulling a threaded needle through cloth.  That rhythm soothed her soul.  Embroidery met this need.  She could buy a transfer kit with a design on it, iron that ink onto her own fabric, and stitch away.  Or she could even buy a design already stamped on table linens or dish towels and get right to business.  The local five-and-dime sold cotton embroidery floss by the bushel, and even had some of the designs she liked.

This tablecloth was one Margene started, but never finished.  She was in the midst of it when she got the news that her son was killed in a car accident.  She tried, but could never bring herself to thread the needle for that project again.  After a long while, she did do other embroidery projects, but every time she picked this one up, her hands trembled, and her eyes filled with tears.  If she couldn’t see the design, how could she stitch it?

All the above is imaginative.  I don’t know anything about this project except I bought the unfinished tablecloth after looking at it in a favorite antique mall booth for months, maybe years.  At $17, it’s beyond what I normally spend on linens to cut apart and reuse, but the soft colors, the nice stitching, the possibilities, kept beckoning to me.

Here is the tag the vendor included with the piece.  Her linens are clean and pressed, and packaged to stay that way while on display.  I could see through the cellophane that there were traces of the stamped design that had not yet been stitched.  I could read between the lines of the tag that the vendor thought someone would buy the piece and finish the embroidery. 

I could do that.  I would enjoy doing that.  I might actually do that.  But it’s likely that I will include it in a quilt project with the design left as “Margene” stopped.  An open-ended story – so many possibilities.

The portrait is a discarded photo I found in a bin at another store.  I thought this lady had a story or two to tell.  Turns out, she had a tablecloth.

Since I’m sharing this again in honor of International Women’s Day, if you are a new reader, you might want to read about some of the real women who’ve influenced me:

Spinster Sisters is the story of two of my ancestors whose stories impacted my life from the day of my birth.

Quilting Sisters introduces you to two women who still influence me today. A site search for “Joyce” or “Hilda” will yield more stories of these women.

Come On In

An old favorite haunt of ours has reopened this summer.  A warehouse in town where a construction firm once sold architectural relics is now new and improved.  A new generation of owners has made these treasures available again.  It’s even better than before.

What we once visited as Second Chance is now 7th Street Salvage.  Oh, never fear, there are still ample choices awaiting a second chance!


Catherine has an eye for detail and has glorious displays everywhere.  In addition to the warehouse holding years of accumulated doors and windows and stair railings, there are delightful vignettes of small treasures. Catherine has searched out more vintage delights and combined books and chairs and jars and hinges in the most unique ways. Her husband Brent is her partner in the endeavor.

The organization of bits and pieces is amazing.  Even the most OCD of us would love the cataloging of salvage pieces here.


I appreciate the old and dusty, and sometimes rusty, elements that are abundant in these places.  In some places we visit, a mad jumble encourages me to walk away.  That’s not a problem here.  Everything is grouped and categorized with clear price lists displayed.  The simple quantity of things like doorknobs and hinges and backplates and keys is astounding, but the organization is amazing.  Eat your heart out, Container Store.

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Look – tiles organized by quilt block usage: Half-square triangles and trapezoids ready to go!

And, who knew how educational such shopping could be?  Did you know chickens needed laxatives?  

This display of doorplates had me spellbound.  I bought a couple and included one in a fabric collage about home.  And I learned a new word: escutcheon.

This amazing place is 7th Street Salvage in Macon.  Their schedule of open weekends is on facebook (https://www.facebook.com/7th-Street-Salvage-1903699043183111/).  The architecture of Macon is glorious.  To keep the elements of its historical beauty available to include in newer homes is a public service.

Here is the piece I am making using one of the doorplates I bought.  I used vintage linens and a house key from our ancestral past atop an overdyed quilt remnant to showcase the escutcheon.  It’s all ready to mount on a 16’ x 20” canvas here.

 

 

 

 

 

It looked bare.  So I’m auditioning edges.  What do you think?

Update: Here is a later post about the wall hanging once it was finished: I changed the name to Safe Haven.

As Is

I love to find a vintage textile marked “as Is.”  To me it means the price is discounted.  There may be hole in it – giving me an excuse to cut it up and reuse it, or to patch the hole with appliqué. There may be stains on it, meaning i am free to dip the piece in the indigo dye bath, making it beautiful and blue.

Elegantly presented and pristine linens delight me.  I sometime buy them to use just as they are and I do appreciate the dealer’s work in laundering them and packaging them so nicely.  But there is a special thrill in digging through a basket of miscellaneous bits of cloth and finding the treasure that is 100% linen.  Or a towel made from huck cotton. 

Of course, the value is not only in the eye of the beholder.  Most dealers know that even a worn faded sliver of barkcloth will sell for a pretty penny.  But occasionally I find a piece that was just recognized as old and worn.  I don’t squeal with delight until after I’ve paid my pittance for it.  Oh, I do love a find like that.

A worn cotton petticoat that has tucks and lace holds all kinds of potential to become part of a rescued remnant.

Here is a worn dresser scarf with a hole and a stain and a tear in the trim – all signs of use and deposits in some girl’s bank of memories.  There were other pieces in the set; some with more wear, some with less. 

One of the bluebirds flew from a tattered piece and became this heart. 

This heart was made from the intact embroidery from a tattered pillow cover.

And another came from some very very worn curtains.  This corner was bright and colorful.  I love how the old fabrics keep their brilliance!

See why I love “as is”?  I love giving those surviving elements a new home.  Some woman loved these fabrics, either because she stitched the embroidery herself or maybe she selected a color combination to brighten her kitchen.  Now her work survives to brighten someone’s day again.

 

A Lily for Ruth




Ruth loved gardening.  She loved the feel of the brown earth between her fingers as she planted bulbs and seedlings, anticipating the color that would come later.  She reveled in a pleasant day with white clouds in a blue sky.

At least that’s how I imagine the Ruth whose family had this lily engraved on her headstone.

 

 

 

 

To remember Ruth forever, I made a crayon rubbing of the lily on silk fabric and added dimension and detail with free motion machine stitching.  I added some lace and beads with  hand stitching and layered it all atop an old quilt remnant.  

I hope Ruth would be pleased.

 

 

 

 

 

Jim and I enjoy exploring cemeteries.  Sometimes those walks end up in artwork.  Earlier references to other adventures are here and here and here.

A Sewist Died


While touring a favorite antique mall of ours, I saw a booth with a new basket of sewing goodies.  Patterns, thread, buttons, were all gathered together for my plunder.  There were handmade wooden buttons and needlebooks distributed as advertising media, too.

This booth’s owner must have gone to an estate sale where the remains of a sewing stash were discarded.  The old wooden spools with their richly colored threads are still beautiful and the vendor must have enjoyed corralling them artfully in jars and vases.  As I studied the bits of an unknown woman’s history, I thought of the line I’ve recently seen, “our children don’t want our stuff.”  That headline advises us to clean out, get rid of that stuff (the jars and vases included), so our children won’t have to.

Now, I don’t want my children to have a burden to clean out my stuff, but I don’t want to get rid of it now!  I’m loving my stuff, just as Ester, or Mildred, or whatever this woman’s name was, loved hers.  She bought those patterns and planned clothes for her and her children and grandchildren.  She selected the threads and buttons to make those dreams a reality.  And the leftover pieces are now there for me and others to cherish, repurpose, or just see and remember her pleasure.

I still have bits of my mother’s and my mother-in-law’s sewing treasures.  I use some of them every day.  Others, I just enjoy their presence as I sew.  And, though I didn’t buy all of Mildred’s stuff today, someone will.  And, Mildred’s selections will become part of another stitched work of love.

Often when I buy these fabric treasures, the clerk at the counter will ask what I’m going to do with them.  It seems everyone loves them but, “no one knows what to do with them.”  When I explain about my art, sometimes showing them a photo, I get mixed reactions.  Some say, “oh, no, you’re going to cut it up?!!”  Others say, “That’s good.  It will continue to live on.”  That’s my hope.

Note:  I know “sewist” looks awkward in print.  The first image that comes to mind when you read “sewer” is not of a person pulling needle and thread through fabric, now is it?  Right.  So, I embrace the word sewist.