Linen Rescue One

I washed the vintage linens I rescued this weekend and then put them in to soak with a washerful of Oxiclean.  I just let the washer fill on the soak cycle, turned it off, and then went in several times to let it agitate for a few seconds.  Then, around noon today, I put them through another wash cycle, but with no detergent or oxygen bleach.

If you decide to try something like this, it's important that they air dry, not dry in the dryer.

If they air dry and need to go back into an oxygen bleach solution, they can do that.  If they go into the dryer, the stains will set forever.

I'm thinking I may need to re-soak the pillow sham and the dresser scarf once I determine whether I can live with the very slight discoloration.  I think I would like to quilt both of them. It would be nice if a vintage quilted dresser scarf would motivate me to keep the top of the dresser clear.

The linens that are off-white or almost eggshell color fascinate me.  I wonder why the women of the mid-1950s to 60s decided to leave white and go to off white with that beige/gray embroidery.  I need to talk to some of them before we lose them.  One of the beige embroidered napkins looks like it had already met bleach some time in the past.  The rose-woven damask napkins are so old that their corners and hemstitching were done by hand.  They do make my heart sing!

Our little town's internet service got "backed up" as in "traffic jam" yesterday.  Some customers got re-routed; some of us just were disconnected.  I think we're back on now, but it was a throw back to old times for nearly 24 hours!  Twenty years ago all this internet connectivity was pretty much just a dream.  We've come a long way since then.  Twenty years ago I hadn't yet had the opportunity to crawl in ceilings and pull wire through a school building.  Now we are wireless.  Very nice progress!

Happy quiltmaking,

Cedar Chests

I often feel sad that in other parts of the country people seem to have no trouble finding beautiful cast-off vintage linens.  Vintage linens are some of my favorite things.

This morning I walked into  a local thrift store and straight to a bag of vintage linens marked at $5.
You can bet I paid for those and left as quickly as I could.  This store almost never has any vintage linens, and I'm guessing most of these came from the same person or estate.

However, when I returned home and opened them, it was clear they had been stored in a cedar chest--for years.  They were once gorgeous, and I'm hoping they can become so once again. These were all once white.

The damage is especially notable around the edges and on folds, and where they had touched the cedar.

However, these are the two that take the cake!--Stored with food spills still on them!  I'm going to go take care of that right now!

The lessons these former owners will probably never learn is that cedar chests are moth prevention for woolens.  If something is any other fiber, including paper, an airtight cedar chest is a very, very bad idea! I wish I knew how to get that information out to more people!!

Happy quiltmaking.

Quilting Fail

Perhaps two square feet of quilting.  Didn't see or hear a thing out of the ordinary.  Didn't suspect until I rolled to another part of the quilt.  Probably three or four hours of unstitching.  So, no, I don't get to move on to the quilt that I really, really want to do!

As far as I can tell there is *no* fast way to un-stitch.

Here's to a better day tomorrow!

Happy quiltmaking and knitting,

A Group Quilt

A couple months ago, or, maybe, several, one of the ladies in our Victory Prayer Quilts Group suggested we come to the meeting with charm packs or layer cakes, she'd bring, white, and we could each make a quilt from a pattern she would bring.  I think the pattern is from a Missouri Star tutorial.

I took an Eleanor Burns layer cake, thinking I'd put it with white to make another pattern.  The lady forgot the white.  Ruth brought quite a few charm packs and suggested we use some of those.  The lady also brought sets of strips she had already cut to be used in charm pack quilts.

When I got there and couldn't make the quilt top I had planned, Ruth told me to use some of her charm packs with the strips.  This quilt is the result.

Here's the quilt in last Sunday's sun in the church narthex.

From a different angle:

I love text prints, but almost never see any when I'm buying fabric.  This text was printed in multiple colors and recalled a Paris exhibition at the beginning of the 20th century (or end of the 19th).

It quilted beautifully.

 If our championship binding lady hadn't moved away a year ago, it could have been a four-person quilt.

Happy quiltmaking,