Damaged Vintage Embroidered Linen

I am just so pleased with how this turned out.  I have had this piece for some time (okay, a really long time) and was undecided as to what to do with it.  I was drawn to it for some reason.  It looked like this at first - complete with stains.

The stains were not washing out, so I decided to try tea dying the piece to make them less noticeable.  Sooo, then it looked like this.

I then let it dry on the line.

Now after all that, the stains had faded, but the piece wasn't a real color.  It looked like a half-way job.  I ended up going through the process all over again with a little mixture of tan and brown dye, and I love how it turned out.  The stains virtually disappeared.

Since I am not entirely certain what its original purpose was, I had a difficult time deciding what to do with it.  I thought a long pillow - naah, an odd table-topper - no, too weird, how about a curtain in the spare room?  It is rather primitivish. (Yes, new word in the King's English:) I did not photograph it on the window, because the light isn't very good in that room, but here it is against a red background.

Let me know what you think.

Western Scrap Quilt

Just in case you were wondering, the answer is yes.  My home is where orphan fabric comes to live.  My mom was going to throw away the scraps from a western (roping) quilt that she made.  I saw these big pieces of fabric with destination landfill and said, "Well, let me see if I can do something with them."  I don't know why I can't just let it go.  Soooo, I decided to make them work.  I first cut them in as big of pieces as I could - fussy cutting around the scenes.  I then arranged them on the wall.  Finally, I used leftovers from three other past projects to fill in the blanks.  I just sorta added bars of fabric to make them fit.

I have not mulled through my stash to figure out what border, binding, and backing to use.  I have no more of these scraps, which is nice.  Toward the end, it was getting kinda scary as to if I was going to have enough of these to even get the top put together.  So the overall look came together.

I will not keep be keeping it.  I prefer a more antiqued European chamber room look in my home.  You would never know it by the silly scrap quits I have been making.  I am however, cleaning out the little piles of 'project scraps,' and I think it was worth saving them from the landfill.  Never fear, I have lots of other orphans to tend to:)      

About Me (Us really)

We live about 25 miles from the closest grocery store in the beautiful mountains of Oregon.  We strive to provided a good majority of our food for ourselves and/or find it locally while at the same time eating what we consider to be the healthiest diet and creating as little refuse/garbage as possible (down to about 6 bags per year ~ yes!)  It takes great balance to juggle all these balls at once, and at times we are more successful than others.  Sometimes, it's an outright circus.  C'mon along; we enjoy the company.

Civil War Table Runner

Good Morning All. I just wanted to show you what I have been working on. Our local library had a fund raiser at which they had fabric, yarn, patterns, etc. all donated then had a sale. The fabric was sold by the pound. I found these reproduction Civil War fabric scraps. Someone had used the fabric, and these were the leftovers so I snagged them and challenged myself. This is what I came up with. I didn't use a pattern, I just went with whatever the fabric told me to do. I will bind it with the red that is behind it at right - and yes, that is part of another quilt in the corner. That's the wonderful thing about a design wall. I have room for multiple projects. But back to the table runner. I am going to hand quilt it. I know, I am a glutton for punishment, but I just can't seem to machine quilt a Civil War style piece. I think I will do slightly bigger stitches - more primitive-ish. Let me know what you think.

If I were to choose the fabrics, I would have aimed for a little more distinction between the small prints, but then it wouldn't be as much of a challenge now would it? I think the red binding will help. One other little thing is if you have not used the 'wonder ruler' for half triangle squares, I strongly recommend it. It makes them so easy to cut and sew with very little brain power required. I love it! Playing with stitches is such a fun way to spend time, I think I should do it more often:)

Until next time, wishing you even stitches and matching corners.