French Treasure (And a Little Bit of Swiss)

France is quite close to where I (Kara) live, and I've shared over the last two years various glimpses of the Alsace region of France. When I first arrived, I was able to go the European Patchwork Festival in Sainte Marie Aux Mines, and this past spring, I took a fun trip to Strasbourg, France. (You can read about both places here and here). This visit to France took us to the Burgundy region of France on our way down to Lyon, for the Women's World Cup soccer final. 

Castle Chillon

I thought it would be fun to take a few days to get to Lyon, so we planned a some stops along the way. The first stop was Castle Chillon in Veytaux, Switzerland, located on the shores of Lake Geneva. It is by far the best castle we have visited! There was so much to see inside—and a little inspiration as well.

One of the many beautiful works of art on the walls

The castle also had quite a collection of carved trunks from the fifteenth through the seventeenth centuries—beautiful old school luggage! The carvings were amazing!

This was the inside lid of one of the trunks.

I can see an appliqué pattern here.

After the castle, we were off to the French side of Lake Geneva where we spent a lovely night in a converted, old barn with views like this:

Our next stop was Beaune, France, for a little sightseeing and wine tasting. As we were strolling through the streets of Beaune, who should I meet but a friend from the Academy of Appliqué! It really is a small world. My husband and I enjoyed visiting some of the local antique shops and discovered this beautiful wool appliqué tapestry from the Ottoman empire, or so we were told.

I just love the colors and the shading!
I wish I could have brought this home.

Onwards we traveled towards Lyon via Mâcon, France, where I had discovered a flea/antique market that would be held that day. To our surprise it was not just antiques that we found, but a gathering with homemade French food and wine! The booth owners were so gracious and plied us with delicious goodies and glasses of the local vintage as we perused their wares. I was pretty excited to find some lovely vintage ribbons, lace, an old postcard, and a bobbin lace pillow.

Not yet sure how these will be used

Sweet little trims!

A nice addition to my collection

It's hard to believe this is still in such wonderful shape!

I will have to do some translation, but it does say "Happy New Year" on the tiny card.

And my favorite find—an antique bobbin lace pillow!

The bobbins are quite tangled, but it is a treasure nonetheless. 

Hopefully, you have enjoyed seeing some of the beauty of France (and Switzerland) from our road trip through this region. We met some lovely people, ate a lot of good food, and certainly drank some excellent French wine—and even scored some vintage treasures!

Oh and by the way...congratulations to the U.S. women's soccer team on their win!!

Who Needs a Pattern?

'Tis the season for giving—and decorating! But as the weather chills and winter comes upon us, it is also a great season for stitching. This year, I (Teri) decided it might be fun to do some free-stitching and practice my spontaneous designing (not my forte), using some felted wool from old sweaters and whatever threads and beads I had on hand that made me happy. I tend to do better with a plan, but I allowed myself to play with various stitches and combinations, trying new threads and just having fun. Here are my results.

A gathered lace flower surrounded by pearly beads remind me of a snowflake. I gave this one to a friend before she left for her Florida winter, so she could be reminded of the snow she'd be missing.

I gathered an assortment of threads that I had been given, but had not yet tried, as well as my bin of beads. I cut wool circles of about two inches, and smaller pieces to stitch in the center, and I was ready to play. Above, the results are under my tree on the embroidered tree skirt that my mom lovingly stitched for me some thirty years ago.

The center circle is attached using a knotted blanket stitch with alternating long and short spokes; a bead added between each stitch. It is edged with a blanket stitch.

The sweater design inspired the embroidery on this one, accented with crystal and bugle beads and knots. Rayon thread gave a bit of luster to the knots and the blanket stitches around the edge. 

Bugle beads create the star with a glass bead in the center. The rest is blanket stitching.

Rayon thread is used for the blanket stitch around the diamond, which is stitched with a ribbon flower made of 1/8-inch ribbon lazy daisies with a beaded center. 

The green center is attached with a beaded blanket stitch, filled with herringbone stitch and surrounded by seed stitches and a feather-stitched snowflake.

Rayon thread adds luster to the lazy daisy flower in the center. The ornament is edged with a knotted blanket stitch, with beads added between each stitch. 

The bugle beads surround a glass bead to create an eight-pointed star, this time with wool thread colonial knots on the ends of the beads. On the edge, I added larger, triangular beads every third blanket stitch. I made a knot before and after the bead.

Here, my shape is not an exact circle but more of a teardrop shape. In the center circle, I stitched three bugle beads and used pearl cotton to stitch a knot in the center and detached lazy daisy stitches between each bead. To attach the circle, I used a blanket stitch, alternating the direction of the spokes. I then added wool colonial knots between the spokes in the circle and at the tip of the spokes outside of the circle. I edged with a knotted, beaded blanket-stitch.

The pearly bead star is centered with a pearl cotton colonial knot—the same thread used to attach the diamond. (Well, almost a diamond; those little shapes tended to shift on me.) Rayon/metallic thread (Dazzle, by Wonderfil Specialty Threads) gave some sparkle to the chain stitch and colonial knots, as well as the knotted, beaded blanket stitch around the edge.

Finally, I used a small herringbone stitch with the rayon thread to attach the center circle. Pearl cotton and small beads created the feather-stitched snowflake in the center. The ornament is then embroidered with pearl cotton chain stitches and rayon herringbone stitches and colonial knots.

The possibilities are endless. I could have kept on stitching these little gems, but other seasonal obligations are curtailing my creative time. Most of these little ornaments have already be given to friends. They make fun little personal gifts and would make great gift tags as well. 

The best part is that because the wool tends to be pretty thick when you felt sweaters, you don't even have to back them. It is pretty easy to hide the thread ends in the middle of the wool, and I just used a thick thread for the outer edge to make it look neat. The only problem is that I hardly dented my felted sweater wool stash—so more fun awaits. Maybe I'll have to make some mittens, too!

 

With a few more ornaments, my Charlie Brown tree might be transformed! 

Tattered Elegance

If you read our blog on a regular basis, you know that Kara and I (Teri) love a quilt with a story. Okay, we know that every quilt tells a story, so it would be accurate to state that we just love quilts. But figuring out the story in a quilt is half the fun of studying one. Sometimes we know the history—it's always a blessing if we have some written provenance—but then there are the quilts that find their way into our hands about which we know nothing. This gem is one of those. And so the fun begins!

A few months ago, we received an email from a regular attendee at the Academy of Appliqué, Ann D'Hondt. She made our day, to say the least! 

Hi Teri! I'm a "regular" at Barbara's Academy and a follower of your website, on which I love the wandering variety of subjects! Keep having fun and sharing with us! So, now I know who to gift my very vintage but a tad fragile crazy quilt to...........you! It has a lot of life and love to give and will be fun to study for sure! It was gifted to me as someone who appreciates and restores, but crazy quilting is not in my skillset. Will put it in your hands at the Academy! Ann

We were incredibly honored that she had thought of us, as we have been intrigued by crazy quilts since we helped our friend, Jan Vaine, re-create a crazy quilt for her book, Patchwork and Embroidery Revisited, several years ago. We were indeed hooked and have taught several classes on crazy quilting as a result. We have both purchased several for our collections. Ann's generosity was an amazing gift—this stunning, earth-toned (my favorite!) crazy quilt to examine and study. Yes, it is a bit tattered, but within those tatters are some elegant stitches. Let's take a close-up look together, shall we?

While many of the fabrics around it have deteriorated, the embroidered silk Forget Me Not ribbon is intact. I love the use of the blanket stitch at the top and bottom, as well as the stitch combinations on either side, with just the colors reversed.

Here, the stitcher just outlined the motif on the velvet print with a fine embroidery thread.

Name this motif! Often, the stitched motif is the only thing that has remained; but here, the embroidery threads have broken down, leaving just a hint of the design on an intact velvet background. What do you think it is? A hunter? Soldier? What is on his head??

Another mystery motif... Flowers? What do you think?

This one, above, is an example where the silk fabric has shattered, but the embroidered frog motif is hanging on for dear life. Below, our jump-roping girl has survived on only the warp threads of the silk background, while the fishing boy resides on the pieces of background silk that have not yet fallen away.

Aren't these two dear?

The velvet has stood the test of time much more successfully than the silk. Notice how the detailed embroidery is in nearly pristine condition, compared to some of the other motifs we have seen.

Even the velvet motifs held up well, as you can see in the leaves above. The stitcher has created some lovely seam treatments using interesting combinations of fairly simple stitches. While most of her threads were pearl cottons, the variety of thread thickness adds variety and interest.

Is it worthy of noting that the two examples of painted motifs on the quilt both happen to be daisies? Intentional or accidental? 

This leaf motif might have gotten lost in the midst of this silk patch, but the surrounding stitch combinations help to give it balance. Still, it could have been centered a bit better. With such attention to detail throughout the quilt, I'm certain there was a good reason for the motif to be so close to the edge, with nothing below. 

I love these seam treatments! And that star in the middle (above) is made of carefully couched threads. Note the creative use of basic straight stitches to create some lovely combination seam stitching, below.

These urns are probably my favorite motifs of the quilt. They are so detailed, and each one is about the same size, yet unique. There was actually another, but like some of the above motifs, the stitching on the red velvet disappeared. I had in fact missed that urn the first few times I examined the quilt. Now, the one in the lower right corner above...I think might be an urn with something in it. I have a hard time seeing anything but the top of a king's face with a crown. I'm pretty sure that's not what it is, though. Any thoughts?

  

Two opposite sides of the quilt have what appears to be silk ribbon stitched along the edge, as at the top of this photo above. The other two sides were folded under and stitched, as below, though most of that has come undone. I couldn't visualize how the quilt would have looked finished, or why the ribbon was only on two of the sides. But then . . .

. . . I pulled out the beautiful piece of lace that was in the pillow case with the quilt. Thinking it was "just" a piece of lovely lace, I had set it aside and thought little of it, except for that is was exquisitely elegant. But then I laid it out and took a closer look.

About half of the lace has the same "ribbon" edge as that on the quilt sides, and the other half does not—probably not a coincidence. Then I noticed that the lace was pleated to create a corner, below. 

This lace had at one time been the border of the crazy quilt.

Oh, to have seen this quilt in its heyday! It might have rendered me speechless, in all its beauty!! (And that's saying a lot.) The warm colors, matched by the stunning three-inch wide lace trim, and its masterful embroidery must have made quite a statement to those who visited the home where it was displayed. For surely it was a piece that was proudly exhibited, for all to see. Such artistry should not be hidden. Unfortunately, we do not know the story behind the making of this quilt, but that doesn't mean it isn't full of stories!

Can you see the beauty amidst the tatters and shattered silk? I know I can!

With humble gratitude to Ann D'Hondt for her generosity in gifting us this stunning quilt.
May it live a long and happy life, bringing joy to all who see it,
until we someday must pay it forward and gift it to another,
who can continue to share its beauty.
Thank you, Ann!!

Afterword: I learned some interesting things about shattered silk as I researched this topic. In the late 1800s and early 1900s, silks were treated with metallic salts so that they would have more sheen and weight, which broke down the fabric. Silk was sold by weight rather than by the yard, so the heavier the fabric, the more that could be charged. Laws against weighting silk were passed in the 1930s, so if you come across such shattered silk, it is likely to be older than that decade. To read more about this fascinating topic, read Shattered Dreams: What Makes Antique Silk So Fragile? and Caring for Your Textiles (Victoria and Albert Museum).