A non-book-related post this week.
Before Christmas, I was contacted by a woman who I'd met when I was vending at the local farmers market. She asked if it's be interested in doing something with her mother's vintage wedding gown.
I said yes, so long as she didn't mind waiting until after the holidays. We got together in early January to discuss the project. She suggested pillows, one for her and one for her sister.
Their mother got married in 1949, and the gown was a relatively plain ivory rayon satin. It was pretty, but it had been in a box (not even proper wedding gown storage) for more than sixty years. It had more sentimental value to them than value as a vintage garment. Even so, it was hard to make that first cut.
I embroidered each woman's initial in the center of a rectangular panel, and then pieced strips of the satin around it. The fabric has such an exceptional glow that I wanted to use pieces to catch the light. Since she asked if there was a way that the covered buttons could be incorporated, I made two rosette-style flowers and used buttons as the centers. The backs of the pillows are a patchwork quilt that had been on their parents' bed their entire childhood.
I finished the pillows on Friday and she stopped over on Sunday to collect them. I love making people cry.
3 comments:
What beautiful pillows and a beautiful act of kindness on your part (even if you charged for the work). My grandmother made baby clothes from her white silk wedding dress. A sorrow to me, but no doubt money was tight.
Those baby clothes were no doubt greatly appreciated, as was the money exchanged. Sometimes keeping a garment isn't the best answer but it's hard to know what's been lost.
Beautiful! And now the sisters can enjoy their family memories every day.
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