Tuesday, October 13, 2015

Recycling meets diy meets textile rescue

So here's the reveal of the latest home improvement feature, my new shabby chic portiere:





A fellow artist is moving, getting rid of a lot of items, and had beautiful linens she will never use, came to her through her family, probably old, and this piece came to me.  

It's actually a banquet style table cloth, linen, much heavy openwork and stitching and drawn threadwork, and was stained.  A bath in Synthropol took care of most of the stains, so I decided not to dye it with coffee, my first thought, but leave it alone.  I may take closeup pix for Art the Beautiful Metaphor and see if anyone can help identify the style of work and techniques, but tonight I just wanted to gloat a bit.
 
Then the decision on the  place for it to rest.  Too narrow for the window I originally had in mind, but very nice as a gathered full portiere in the bedroom, just slung over a tension rod.  No damage done to textile, and now it can hang a while, until I get up the gumption to starch and press it.  No harm in letting it hang for a bit, to release some of the creases.  And it hides various unlovely items like file boxes and vacuum cleaners and out of season decorative items.

The country style chair was a dumpster find years ago.  So you could say the textile is slumming a bit.

It definitely lends a shabby chic air to the place.  Color is ecru cutwork and drawn threadwork on white linen, and I see this doorway from my bed, so it's a good place to enjoy the piece.  I'll see it every day, and honor it and all the stitching work in it. It's hung a few inches up off the ground, so that marauding kitties don't get caught up in the openwork.

 

4 comments:

  1. Looks like you found the perfect spot for this piece. I like the dumpster chair.

    I'm curious as to how you come upon so many dumpster finds. Are you keeping a 24 hour watch or have a telescope aimed at the dumpster site ?

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  2. I live in an area of townhouses and apartments, each block with its own dumpster enclosure, and when people move out, either because they're transferred (high tech and banking) or because they are moving abroad, or home (many foreign nationals) it's just too expensive to move most things. So they leave a lot at the dumpster nearest their place, and the neighbors check it out!

    It sounds good because you're seeing the results of forty years of dumpster checking! no need for the surveillance, just check the day before the garbage men.

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  3. What a huge amount of work went into that lovely tablecloth. I look forward to your close-ups. In the meantime - a perfect spot you have found for it.

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  4. I also look forward to close-up shots, and meanwhile I'm off to google Synthropol.

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