cushion covers - making and collecting

Cushion covers became my passion when I started

the  Blue & white Sampler Quilt I made about a decade ago..

The blue & white ones have been made by me some  years ago and the more they get faded each year,  the more prettier they have become.

My collection keeps growing...I have blogged on the   white on  white ones  (below pic) I made & collected before and still collect, which were mostly quilted but basically with embroideries and laces.

to find more pics and details of the above granny square  cushion covers,  simply click your  

choice below  starting  from left to right..

pillow 1 .... pillow 2 ......    pillow 3, 

crocheted white cushion cover

4 quilted star pillowcases but with different  part templates...

The one on the right was handquilted and the  left one
 was quilted with the machine. 

Thank you for visiting and reading this blog... have a good start of the coming week!


I´m linking this to :
Show & Tell Friday
Feathered Nest Friday - 26
Once Upon a Time in a Bed of Flowers

a parade of pillowcases and laces

  

One of the fave things I´m into nowadays is white pillowcases, made some a couple of weeks ago. 

Yeah, I´ve collected a few already, it all started during my  holiday when I brought home a very pretty tablecloth and a pillowcase made by the women of Cyprus. They make pretty laces and in every town we visited, women have had their lace work done outside the house, so to speak in  their patios and sometimes these women sell their works directly right at their doorsteps...

I love to put up all the pillows when the bed is not in used, that  way it gives a romantic touch to the whole room..

 The tablecloth from Cyprus is big enough to cover the bed  and sometimes I use it as bedcover in the guest bedroom.  The crochet skirt is actually a  tablecloth which I also use to  give pretty decor effect to the bed when not in use. I made it some  20 years  back  when I commuted by train to work..

Some of the white pillowcases I have were handdowns   from "Oma", hubby´s grandma... She was an avid crafter like me,  she loved to embroider her pillowcases and I guess am lucky to  have inherited all her works. 

I found a pair of white pillowcases with monograms from  a fleamarket organized by schoolchildren in our vicinity,  lucky find though( see below photo)  ´cause the price tag was really  just a fraction of a cost, giveaways as such!

This is the center of the Cyprus tablecloth......

..... and the edge lacing on all sides.

A pillowcase from Cyprus

 A friend´s gift for my birthday

I got this from a fleamarket dealer for 0,50 Euro cents. To think of the work

involved in crocheting a simple lace like this.. it is not only a bargain, it´s a treasure..

 I made this one, I wanted to put an embroidered piece in  the center

 but later changed my mind and crocheted the middle part and stitched

 this onto the main pillowcase by hand..

Oma´s masterpiece using the richelieu embroidery  technique, cutting

 out the outline after embroidery was done and attached a piece of  what looked like a net as background of the whole work... it is indeed a piece of art!

 I´ve finally decided to finish the above pair during the last  couple  of weeks... Actually they were hand quilted by me as well  as lace edges were crocheted long beforehand.  The crocheted edges  were  intended to be laces for a bed canopy that I wanted to make, but it  did not materialize because I opted to use a different fabric for  the canopy panels... I will still continue to add to this collection and hope to find more treasures like these...

I hope everyone´s doing good and enjoying Sunday.. 

Wishing you all to have a good start of the week!!!

Til next,

Mercy

Of laces & crocheted pillowcase ......

Crocheting is one passion I´ve been doing as far as I can remember.

  At a young age of 9, I became so curious at how a friend´s older

sister did all those pretty lacy bedcovers in their home. I think her

 beautiful laces which she painstakingly done with pleasure, somehow

the challenge triggered my subconcious to learn & try this craft. 

Finally, I asked my Ma to get me a hook and yarn so I can try it myself...

I love it ever since and the more I learned each day, the more excited

 I became. I gave my mom my first curtain which she then put up in the

 windows of her canteen  a couple of months after.

 Since then, I´ve done many projects .....be it tablecloth, bedspread,

doilies, tops and many more....you can see part of  my works in

one of  the blogs  featured here called Lovable Doilies and Crocheted Laces .

  

 This particular pillowcase had been a work in-progress that

 I haven´t touched in 6 years... The middle cloth should have been

 embroidered but I thought of it as boring or inappropriate since I want to

have an all white pillowcases that look romantic to add to my  all white ollection.

.......so, I started to make a flowerette, I didn´t have a pattern for this,

 but I know that I had to make 8 petals so I crocheted 8 petals

 until it reached the desired size that is proper for the missing

 middle  part of the pillowcase.

Added to make this square complete are the popcorn stitches that I enjoyed

to stitched.This is just perfect I thought and will make a great center of

attraction for the pillowcase..

Then, I took out the cloth from the center and replaced it with the

 crocheted  flowerette. Good that I simply basted so that it was easier

to remove.

The flowerette was attached temporarily with long stitches using

 a pink thread onto the center. That way, I would be able to see

 it and remove the thread easily when the flowerette is finally  stitched

 in place with white thread.

 For the back of the pillowcase, I cut white cotton fabric to the size

 of the pillowcase + 2 cm allowance on each side. I added a button

 closing using the locally popular metal ring buttons covered with

 linen thread for pillowcases.

All in all, I´m satisfied with the result, and adding one more pillowcase

 to my growing white pillow collection... I hope that you like my blog for today...

Hope to hear from you... comments are welcome!

Wishing you a blessed Sunday !!!

xoxo,

Mercy 

Decorating Ideas For Vintage Laces

Most of my readers know that I´m an avid collector of anything blue and the ones above are part of it.. In order for me to highlight the cupboard because of the dark background, I used vintage laces that were handed down to me by my Granny...These laces were handstitched and are really beautiful. I got plenty of these so I thought of using them in many ways.

I use these vintage laces to trim any soft furnishings at home, recycle old tablecloth and make them into pillowcases...display  old laces anyway I can, they really add romantic touches to the home...

For the ones that are one of a kind and did not belong to a set, I used it as trimming like in  this neck pillow.

 I also trim  a pillowcase which in turn can be used to protect the chair from becoming soily as  píllowcases can be washed and the chair is difficult to clean if it gets soily.

this is an intricate stitchery that has been in hubby´s family since decades, her Grandmother

was fond of the richelieu embroidery. This can be used to adorn a pillow that was actually used

 cover the seal that cold air that slipped inside the room, the houses in those days did not have

 double glazed as in today´s modrn world.

This is also a lace or shall we say doily crocheted by Granny and now 

covers my reading chair.

A vintage lace that I cut and recycled to use as trimming for the 

bed skirt.

the above is an intricate lace and is 1 of 6 that I´m still keeping and 

just don´t know yet what to make out of them.

This is also an old intricately stitched doily and I use it just for display...

 the tray is made by an aunt who is producing and exporting their

 rattan products.

Whatever vintage laces you may have, make the most out of them,

display them in so many ways and show how lovely they are...

Afterall, not so many women are lucky to have such treasures!

Til next,

Mercy

A Tablecloth For A Lifetime

Getting inspired by a tablecloth seen in a magazine is wonderful, but to make it yourself because you are inspired by it is a different thing....this requires patience, patience patience....



First thing I did was to get the materials and those are: the cotton fabric, the crochet thread, crochet hook and a white DMC thread  for stitching the center.



The technique I used to make the center lacing is a famous spanish craft called "Vainicas", this is a stitching method where the horizontal fibers of the fabric are being pulled-out to create a hole in the middle leaving the vertical fibers intact, then with the use of a white thread , stitch it to the vertical fibers based on a  repeated pattern forming the lace.

A closer look at the stitches, you will notice that they are actually a method similar to tying knots. The lace is created following a repeated pattern...

When I finished the crocheted lace for the edges of the tablecloth, I measured the inner square or the hole which later became the size of the cloth. It is of course, very important to crochet the lace first before cutting the fabric... thru the taken size, I´ve considered the seam allowance for the edges of the cloth whose inner edges as you see, also stitched.

Then, the last part is the most fun thing to do, and that is .... attaching the crocheted lace to the cloth by a simple stitch...





  

I sometimes use this tablecloth with a different background depending on my mood. Just  like the flower designed fabric above, it adds a feeling of Spring or Summer,  the table could enhance a fresh-looking-like feeling especially on a weary grey and grey winter...

I hope everyone´s enjoying a nice evening and wish you all a pleasant weekend coming up...

Thanks for being here and for reading me today!

Til next,

 Mercy

Shared at : Feathered Nest Friday