I'm sure someone guessed that my solution for the vintage embroidery would have been postcards! I am so pleased with the way the cards turned out and that I can now share Grandma Dove's embroidery with my Mom and brothers. Here's how I made them. This is what I started with. The embroidery was done by my Grandmother in the early 1930's. It started life as a pillow cover and then it was framed for 20+ years. Last week it fell off the wall and the frame shattered. The linen is too fragile to invest in having the piece cleaned and re-framed. Mom and I agreed that we could toss it out and then I had this idea. You can see in this photo how fragile the fabric is and that some of the embroidery is coming undone. I wasn't about to get involved in embroidery repair but I could stabilize it. You know I love Mistyfuse and it came to the rescue once again. I like that it doesn't add any additional stiffness to the fabric so I can fuse with multiple layers. I thought the fabric was too close to sheer to fuse directly to the postcard interfacing so I first fused the whole embroidery piece to a piece of muslin and then I added a layer of Misty fuse to the muslin (for later fusing to the postcard interfacing.) Then I played around with the postcard interfacing to see how I could cut them to maximize using the embroidery. Here's what I came up with. Where I had seams I decided not to stitch a seam but to butt the cut edges together. I stitched the edges down and then covered the seam with ric rac. You can see from the finished photos that I added ric rac to some of the other cards too. For the back of the cards I stayed with the vintage theme and found this old sugar sack in my stash. Here's the back of all of the cards. The print is light enough that black ink for addressing shows up just fine. I know that because Mom got her card with no problems. Because of the fragile nature of the embroidery I broke my rule with these cards and will mail them in clear envelopes. This is the one I sent to Mom for her birthday. The best part is that this is all that's left to be tossed out!
Becky in VA
7/24/2017 12:23:44 pm
Very clever way to extend the life of the embroidery in the form of a very special keepsake for your family! Of course you would turn it into postcards!!!
Sarah Stevens
7/24/2017 12:38:10 pm
What a great idea! So clever.
Pam
7/24/2017 12:42:01 pm
Once again...amazing.
LINDA
7/24/2017 04:24:32 pm
What good ideas! I learn something new from nearly all of your posts. You inspire me to new horizons. 7/24/2017 04:26:11 pm
Oh, I just love what you did! It brings a whole new layer of art and meaning to what was left. A rebirth of the piece! 7/24/2017 04:59:15 pm
I am surprised that I did NOT guess that. But you did a great job with it. I have to admit that I didn't think of postcards! What a perfect thing to do with something so precious. The use of ric rac is in keeping with the time period and the feed sack backing was absolutely inspired! As a little side note - I wore feed sacks as slips when I was young....and they also got used as pillow cases.
patty
7/25/2017 09:10:16 am
Great solution! The cards turned out quite special.
Andrea
7/25/2017 01:01:48 pm
A beautiful save. How nice that now multiple people can have a piece to remember her by. Comments are closed.
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I'm Vicki Welsh and I've been making things as long as I can remember. I used to be a garment maker but transitioned to quilts about 20 years ago. Currently I'm into fabric dyeing, quilting, Zentangle, fabric postcards, fused glass and mosaic. I document my adventures here. Categories
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