For the May edition of my calendar tote project I decided to use a vintage embroidered crazy quilt patch I've been saving for a while. I'd like to do a theme of vintage embroidery with a black tote. Ordinary I avoid black, as it tends to be depressing, but this time it feels right. I did test the patch against a cream colored cutter quilt piece and while it does bring out the bird a little better I prefer how it looks with the black. I also got out my basket of vintage crazy quilt pieces to hunt through and see if there are some smaller bits of embroidery work I can incorporate. All of these came to me as cutter pieces, which kind of breaks my heart, but crazy quilts are well known to disintegrate, especially because of the types of dyes and the thin silks used during this era, so I feel lucky to have them anyway. The granny square I crocheted in Gumdrop silk yarn last month doesn't quite work with my idea. Neither do these blocks. These defi...
This is one of my favorite purses, whichj developed a big shreddy hole in the back side from (I assume) rubbing against things as I've used it. It's a Vera Bradley I thrifted in a huge lot last year , so I paid only about $1.47 for it. I also certainly have enough purses to just get another from my Vera stash and use it, which I did. I really like this purse, though, so I decided to repair it, launder it and use it again. Since I didn't have any scraps that match the fabric of the purse, I went with a white dotted dark blue patch that goes fine with the floral print. I pinned down the patch in a rectangle and sewed it over the hole, reinforcing the edges with a blind stitch to give it extra strength. Here's the finished mend. Holes and fraying are common problems with vintage Vera Bradley products, as the fabric and thread used to make them is extremely thin and cheap. This purse was in new condition when I began using it back seven months ago. ...