It all began with a garage sale. Like many of my other projects I was digging through an enormous pile of fabric searching for unique vintage fabric and a steal of a deal when I spied some hand embroidery. Red, aqua marine, green, and brown on a white background. When I see these bits of hand work I can’t seem to resist. I think about who the artist must have been. Who was she? For whom was she willing to take her precious time to give to the task of pulling thread and needle through cloth? I do a little hand embroidery and I know it takes a lot of time so I can’t stand to see it in a pile of things to be discarded, even when there are tears and stains on the piece. Would one throw out a Monet just because it had a little rip? Of course not, so I also respect the hand work of others who stitch with love.
So begins this project: A Circus themed baby quilt. I will try to attach as many pictures as I can to show you the steps but please forgive me if my new Blogging skills show my novice posting practice. No, I don’t yet know how to rotate these pictures to their upright and secure position.I’ll keep you posted in several different posts so please follow me to see them all.
The first picture is going to be the center block. The next is what it looked like when it came home. It’s stained and wrinkled but a diamond in the rough to me. I took advise from Pinterest and tried lemon juice to fade the rusty stains with a good deal of success. Pour salt on the stained area and pour lemon juice over it. It helped but did cause it to spread so lots more lemon juice later, then my favorite stain remover, Clorox 2 color safe bleach, then a bit of real chlorine bleach, and it was better. It’s now barely noticeable and I covered the remaining small tears with coordinating fabrics in circles and stars that are all backed with fusible iron on adhesive. I plan to stitch them down later so they’re more washable; it is a baby quilt after all. Picture #3 is the four outer block centers after washing, trimming, stain removal, and application of the fabric patches to cover stains and holes. Last is the mix of fabrics I am using. They are all from my stash. It’s large and I will not need to purchase anything else but maybe some batting.
By the way- the embroidered piece cost me just .50$
Stay tuned for more to come.
Pretty is as Pretty Does 