Saving The Past

I think most of us have a fondness and appreciation of old things.  Especially things that are handmade.  Years ago, I found this little piece of an old appliqued quilt in an antique mall:

It was in pretty good shape at the time.  I brought it home, washed it and sewed a back on it.  I stuffed it with polyester fiberfill and called it a pillow.

Over the years it of course has continued to age.  Time is not always so kind to vintage textiles.  It was time for another good cleaning and some repairs.

I washed by hand in my kitchen sink and replaced the missing french knot for the birds eye.  It had a few tiny tears so I tucked a tiny piece of fusible web beneath the tears and ironed those in place.

Finally, I added a piece of lightweight iron-on interfacing to the back and squared it up.

I pulled a few of my 1930's reproduction prints out, soft shades of green and yellow:

I decided to do a border on the top and bottom of the vintage piece using strip quilting which I do on a foundation:

When I finished up the strip piecing, it kind of screamed "new fabric" against the vintage piece.  I didn't want to "olden" it by tea dying or running through my washing machine a bunch of times so instead, I pulled out some of my cream colored laces and sewed strips of that down over or next to the seams:

This definitely softened the look of the new fabrics also adding a feminine quality to it.  Once I completed that, I squared up my "sheet of fabric":

It was at this point that I realized I had made a much bigger piece than what I needed!  I really just wanted about 3 inches on the top and the bottom of the vintage piece.  That's okay though.  I'll save the rest for something else.

Here is the finished pillow:

This now sits in my living room in an antique spindle chair that my father in law gave me.