Rescuing Vintage Cross Stitch

Last month I got a lovely little collection of cross stitch pieces in my lot of fabric for my friend's quilting class. She kindly allowed me to keep them, so first I decided to clean and frame the two samplers that came in the collection. Cleaning cross stitch can be tricky, but there is a process -- and please note, this is my own process. I am not an expert, and for any valuable vintage needlework you should consult a professional cleaner or conservator.

This particular piece has a lot of red embroidery thread. I will guess it's DMC brand, which tends to be colorfast. However, in my experience red almost always bleeds, and I'm not positive about the brand of thread, so it would be risky to water-wash it (to test the thread, snip a tiny piece from the tails on the back side, weet the snippet, and place it on a white paper towel to dry. If it bleeds, it will leave a color mark on the towel.) Luckily this piece also has no patchy stains or foxing.

I first tape down the piece to my cutting mat and remove all the surface dirt and dust using my cordless handheld vaccuum, which has very gentle suction. You can rubber-band a piece of mesh over the end of a regular vaccuum hose to keep it from damaging a needlework piece.

I then press the piece from the back side using a pressing cloth, with the steam on.

Finally I go over the front of the piece with a lint remover, which usually gets whatever the vaccuum didn't.

After trimming and framing, here's the final result.

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Stuff

After finding this Caron one pound skein of lovely peach yarn in my thrifted lot I raided my stash for two cakes of Mandala in Pegasus, which matches it perfectly. For practice and hand therapy I'm going to make another Worth Street Afghan with this free pattern , but this time I'll use the yarn that was recommended for it plus the one pound skein. I'm not quite ready to do the vintage/recycled linen quilt I had planned (still a bit too nervous about the idea), so I'm going to use some color therapy and make a quilt from these thrifted green fat quarters. I considered doing another Yellow Brick road patchwork pattern, but I might go with a split rail fence like this one.

Better than Fried

I cut some chives from the kitchen garden to make garlic-chive baked fries for dinner. This is a great side dish for veggie burgers. Click here for the recipe from Taste of Home.com.

The Mercantile

If you don't mind walking 33K square feet in retail space, The Mercantile may be the vintage/arts store you'd enjoy visiting if you're ever in Orlando. I certainly did. Because it was busy I didn't take any photos in the store, but it's absolutely amazing and chock full of antiques and artisan creations, most of which were pretty reasonably priced. For $21.00 I invested in a picture of sailboats for the guest bathroom I'm redoing, and a fairy mystery jar of cool stuff. The jaw was hand-painted and decorated, and utterly charming. I think I wanted the jar more than the contents. As you can see the contents were both generous and pretty cool, too. I finally have some vintage gloves to use for my art quilter bingo challenge!

Rayen

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