Black Bugle Beads

It's always a treat when I get something to repair that I really love looking at.  This dress is one of those treats.  It's a "little black dress" with extra flair - beaded trim at the neckline and the one asymmetrical pocket.  

Quite a few of the beads were missing, especially those decorating the pocket.  I bought a tube of matching bugle beads - how lovely to have such a basic bead so that I could find an exact match.

Here's the step-by-step of the bead replacement.  

Japanese banners

A friend of mine, who has done a substantial bit of world travel, asked me if I could repair four World War II banners they had purchased in Japan, and prepare them for hanging.  They are silk, and I decided to back each one with a light-weight silk.  Three are 21"-25" wide and 80" long, and one is very long, 25" wide and 126" long.

This is more than a little off my usual path, so research was called for.  I found great info at this site:
http://militaryantiquesmuseum.com/military_antiques.php

Banners - nobori - have a history of use in war and ceremony.  This website calls them "going off to war" banners:  "These commercially produced colorful banners were pre-printed with military designs. The family and friends would then personalize them with patriotic slogans and/or the soldiers/sailors name."

Amazing Stars, part 1

This quilt just begged to be recorded for posterity.  It's not an uncommon pattern, a basic 6-pointed star.  It's a very nice rendition, stars surrounded by lighter colored baby blocks shapes.  But as you will see, its real claim to fame is its fine condition and its fine collection of 19th century fabrics.

The quilt dates to c. 1870.  "Circa" is usually interpreted at occurring somewhere in the 10 years before or the 10 years after the date.  I think many of these fabrics are 1860s and 70s, maybe a few into the very, very early 1880s.

Peter Pan

I have been working on child-size redwork quilt.  The blocks are scenes from Peter Pan, so it's a very sweet quilt.

The red sashing fabric is a much lighter weight fabric than the white squares, and has split open in several places.  I found an absolutely perfect match for the slightly faded turkey red color at Reproduction Fabrics (www.reproductionfabrics.com).  It was so perfect, that I bought a bunch of it.  And I mean a bunch.  With any luck, I've got enough to repair any such quilt for years and years to come.

Here's the "before" picture, in which you can see Nana the dog, Tiger Lily, and Smee.  (My daughter was Smee in a dance version of Peter Pan when she was about 12, and I've had a fondness for ol' Smee ever since.)

Crazy Repairs

Repairing crazy quilts.  Well.  These are pretty difficult to work with, in my estimation.  Hence the title of this post!

Most often, the problem is what are called "shattered" silks.  This is disintegration caused by the dyes and processing that were used on the silks in the late 1800s and into the beginning of the 1900s, basically in the Victorian era.  Metal salts were added, both as mordants on the darker dyes, and to add that famous silk rustle, and to make the silks heavier since they often were priced by the pound.  (So you see, there have been unscrupulous businessmen around for a long, long time.)

The problem is that there is no way to reverse or stall this damage.  Keeping the quilt out of the light and in even temperature and humidity can slow it down, but that is the best deal you're going to get.

Another problem is the lovely embroidery.  The fabric under the embroidery can't be replaced unless the fancy stitches are removed and then re-embroidered after the patching.

The more I work on these beautiful, jewel-like quilts, the less and less I choose to do.  

Here's one technique that I use.  

more Little Women: Amy

A Sweet Dress for Amy

This dress had the odd set-up of a (worn-out) velcro closure on the front, and a (broken) zipper on the back.  Let's just say, it was pretty hard to wear in its original state.  I took off the old velcro and closed the front seam.  I replaced the zipper in back.

Then, it came to restyling the dress more in keeping with 1860s fashion.  I took off the lace.  I took off the sleeve cuffs.  I found a super good match in a remnant fabric.

A Beaded Wedding Dress

Here's a vintage dress I worked on for my friend's Etsy shop, Basya Berkman Vintage Fashions - http://www.etsy.com/shop/BasyaBerkman

This beautiful, 1940s beaded wedding dress is in nearly perfect condition, save for some snags in the net yoke.  Rather than try to remove beads, replace the net, and re-bead, we decided that I should try adding new beads to cover the snags.  The rolled edge neckline was a bit tattered as well, and I decided to roll it once again.

For the Record - Photographing My Quilts

I photographed my marvelous bog quilt, in the hour or so between the sky clouding over and the winds and rain beginning.  I get the best results by photographing outdoors in natural light.  That means, I have to wait for the right weather conditions to materialize, and then be ready to drop everything else and head outdoors.  I need:

1. a day that's overcast, so the lighting is diffuse (minimizing the texturing of the quilting so the design of the quilt shows well)

Little Women costuming

The show is coming soon!  Shows are November 18-20, with a sneak peek promo at the main Evanston library on November 8.  http://thinicetheater.com/

I'll be posting projects as these next couple of weeks roll along.

Vintage Black Lace blouse for Aunt March

Look at how lovely this lace is!

Repair of a Grand­mother's Flower Garden Quilt

This is a 1930s Grandmother's Flower Garden Quilt.  This pattern was very popular in this era, and often made like this one, with a variety of pastel scrap fabrics on white.

What makes this one special is that it is owned by the woman who used it on her bed as a young girl.  At that time, her mother altered the shape of the quilt to fit on her bed.  Originally, it had two scalloped edges and two straight edges, bound in green.  The alteration took the scallops that used to be along the edge at the top of the photo, and attached it to the green-bound edge on the right.  The new top edge was turned and hemmed.

Repair of a Log Cabin Quilt

I've been working on a log cabin quilt.  It's maybe Mennonite, purchased in Ontario a while ago.  It's not very, very old.  Probably made in the mid to later part of the 1900s.  (When I started quilting, that's how I referred to "The 1800s".  It stills sounds so strange to me to say "The 1900s"......)  The current owner uses the quilt on her bed.  It's been repaired once before.

About Wool Storage

I've been repairing an Amish or Mennonite log cabin quilt made with many wool fabrics.  The story of the quilt is here.  As I pulled out my wools to find patching fabrics, I thought I'd post a bit on wool storage.

I have several piles of old wool fabrics in my stash of scraps for quilt repair.  Quite a few years ago, I suffered an invasion of wool moths.  Not fun!!!  I dumped all my wools in the wash and a hot dryer, no matter if they would survive or not.  Many did not.  But neither did the moth eggs.

Animals of the Fen

As promised, here come the animals to populate the fen quilt.  

My friend, as I said earlier, specified particular species of each animal.  It wasn't hard to find photos of each via google.  I also found info on each animal's size, so I could reproduce them somewhat in scale.  

I put each photo into Illustrator (I imagine any program would work somewhat the same, but I'm nowheres near a computer expert).  I drew a box the size I wanted the animal to be, and scaled the photo accordingly.  Then I printed them out, traced each onto paper, pinned them on the quilt, and checked it out with my friend.  I posted a photo of the quilt with paper animals in place in a previous post.

When the sizing was all set, I used the tracings as patterns to cut the fabrics for the basis of each animal.  Again, the fabrics were all stabilized with iron-on interfacing before I cut.  I stitched the animals in place, using a zig-zag with invisible thread.

Blue Shoes

The Blue Shoes.  We found these shoes for one of our actresses.  They are to go with a sort of royal blue dress, and we figured we could take them somewhere to be dyed to match.  Well, after much research, it seems that the only shoe dying folks will do these days is either black or –– or black.

So we did a bunch of brainstorming, and decided to decorate the shoes somehow with some of the same blue and maybe some pearls, because the hat that she'll be wearing with the dress is blue with some pearl trim, and silver lamé.  The character is a diva sort, the era is the 1940s.  In other words, she needs to be very well "put together".