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

It´s finished !!! Handquilted Blue & White Pillowcase

     Can you imagine that this pillowcase had always been my WIP ( work in process) project since 7 years or so? Well, not until last Weekend.. got all my guts to really finish this one...

 

       It was in those days that I had so much time and energy to do projects particularly sewing and home decorating... But then, something came up before I could execute all my crafts ideas...I need to work for my pension scheme and started putting away all my pending projects and went back into my corporated world..

 

 

 

 

 

This pillowcase is part of a set of 2 that I handquilted....The 2nd pillowcase was transformed into a BAG below !!!

 you can view more photos on the link below

 

- 

 

 http://challengingartsandcrafts.blogspot.co.at/2012/08/mercys-handquilted-bag.html 

 

 

The trick of the handquilting is that, I used masking tapes to set the lines straight, no need to have templates if you are just quilting simple lines and squares...

     The Pillowcase front

The inner side of  the top part. 

  

 

  I cut the back fabric into two for the closure since I´m using buttons. 

 

I got these vintage linen buttons from hubby´s Grandma, I love using them when I make pillowcases. These are the ones I used for the closure..

 

 I think the style of the button fits well to the button hole....

  

 Here , I cut a dark blue fabric as contrast border  making a piping for all the 4 sides.  

 

 

Here´s hoping that you like today´s blog. Am glad that you took time reading me.

 

 

THANK YOU !

 

XOXO;

 

Mercy

 

 

 

Just A Matter of Pillow Talks

Pillows are one of the most comfortable things ever invented for sleeping. I like to sleep with many of them..soft, lightweight, large, small and fresh smelling. I also love to make them, mostly quilted pillowcases are my faves. I also love to recycle old pillowcases, those that have initial of former owners and stitched in their fronts. I have many pillows that were handed-down to me by hubby´s oma ( grandma) and they all got those lovely embroideries and vintage laces...

Here are some of the pillowcases I have made :

These are the set of quilted pillowcases I made using blue & white fabrics.. The patches were actually made as I went sewing them... I have these standard templates for the patches taken from a book and I just kind of cut any fabric coming along my way that have blue & white hues in them.

I mostly quilt the top of my pillowcases using masking tapes and this is one tool I would never miss in my other quilting project be it a bed cover or a bag, etc.

Of course, I also make normal pillowcases out of remnants.  From time to time, I would figure it out what the color scheme would be by choosing from my stored fabrics. I found the fabric rest used for the 3 pillows above from a store that sells curtains. If you happen to have a store nearby, go and ask whether they dispose some of those fabric rests of curtians whose lengths were adjusted for their client´s made to order pieces.

This white pillowcase was made of a rest fabric and I just added the vintage lace I found from
the fleamarket...

Yes, bolsters or neck rolls are fun to make and you could also sew in or attach vintage laces at each of the ends so they would look romantic..

And finally, this is a pink stripe cotton fabric which I found so romantic that I made a couple of pillowcases for my guest bedroom, added the rose design fabric, cut it into strips so it would look like a decor band and add the laces on both sides...

I hope that this blog has inspired you to make your own pillowcases, too!
Wishing everyone a nice evening ahead... Thanks for being here today.

Til Next, 

Mercy

Ako´s Lone Star Quilt...A Tribute

So much time have been spent in making this quilt. The template of the patches were taken from a book whose author was a Swiss lady. The fabric for the star was actually curtain remnants and I kind of imagine it as a project that would take plenty of time... As far as I can remember, it took me a couple of 2 summers to make this. But, I develop a method where I can patch the star quickly and that is to patch the rows one by one and as soon as the row is complete, patch it to another row. Sometimes, it´s difficult to patch exactly but I really tried my best to piece the edges exactly together, otherwise the star would not be symmetrical in its form... Somehow, I managed to complete the Star.

This Quilt travelled so far during its making. From Austria, this has reached Spain where we spent much of the cold months, fleeing away from cold central Europe. My dog, Ako the Rotti always went along with us wherever we went. And everytime I did the the quilting of this project , "Burli" as we fondly called our dog, would come and pressed his nose on my quilt and urged me to play stick throwing with him. 

This quilt has a total of 395 patches or pieces including the back side. I made the pattern of the quilt design by having it zoomed to a bigger size , have it printed and made the quilting pattern by outlining the print with holes...Then transferred it to the quilt top using dressmaker´s chalk..

From Spain, we brought the finished quilt back to Austria and it´s now on the wall of our Viennese home. This quilt is dedicated to our beloved dog for he was an inspiration to us and so it bears his name...Ako´s Lone Star Quilt... Thank you for reading my blog... Have a happy Sunday!

Til Next,

Mercy

Shared at : 

French Country Cottage - Feathered Nest Friday

Blue & White Sampler Quilt

This sampler quilt was patiently made by piecing and putting all together  the 12 blocks by machine then handquilting each block with various quilt design...This was a christmas gift to my husband a few years back...I know it will take time to finish such project, but if  you´re
 patient enough and your perseverance prevails, then the  final moment will shed joy to yourself as well as to the one person receiving it as gift of love.

Here are the details of the 12 blocks based on simple templates common to the sampler quilt. The

fabrics were remnants of various blue colored projects done in the past.

There were no patterns followed for quilting each of the block,  just quilt as I went using masking tapes so lines would at least be straight.

For this circle, I used a round plate as the base for the quilting and then just followed its line as I quilt until I reached the inner square edge of the block. All the rest of th space were just filled with stitches.

The same star pattern is one of the most common designs in a quilt sampler and one can use various shades of fabric thereby changing the appearance of the block.



That´s just about for now, hope you got some ideas for your next quilt... Thank you for reading my blog. Wishing you all a good night sleep and for those who are in Asia, wish you a beautiful day, keep on smiling!

Til next,

Mercy


Shared at :The Dedicated House-Anything Blue Friday Week 51