Nana Barrow's Quilt and Some of her Crochet Too

You may remember that in this post I told you about how the Durham quilt made by my paternal grandmother sparked off my obsession love of Durham quilts. I was asked to post piccies of that first quilt,

So...

...here it is:

Nana Barrow's Quilt

The whole quilt is in quite a fragile state now and is worn around the edges. It also has a small hole in it and on the other side of the quilt it has an old ink stain. This side of the quilt is in better condition, as you can see in the picture below the other side, once a vibrant green colour is now very, very faded.

what really amazes me with these quilts though is that those lovely rich swirling patterns on them are all hand  stitched. I have tried to give a close up of the hand stitching in the photo below.

Quite a while after acquiring the quilt I also acquired another of my Nana Barrow's handicrafts. My maiden aunt discovered that I liked to sometimes crochet and so she gave me a small velvet bag containing my Nana Barrow's unused balls of crochet cotton. In among the balls of cotton was the following pieces of crochet. I have to admit I am intrigued by these as no one seems to know when she made them, or for what purpose. Her youngest son did serve in the RAF just after the war, so we have speculated that she may have made these at that point in time. The pieces are fillet crochet and feature a bi-plane motif.

I have two of these triangular shaped pieces with the long sides measuring 34" and the short sides measuring 22"

 

There is this piece which is clearly unfinished at the top edge so only shows half a plane. This measures 23" at the bottom and 17" at the top.

This piece looks as if it is meant as a border for something, the plane motif is much smaller and less detailed than that in the above pieces. This piece has also been cut off just above where the border turns the corner so to speak. This piece measures 15" long and the border is 8" deep at the widest point.

This is another similar corner piece which again looks like a border, but this is not as deep as the one above, it being only 6 1/2" at the widest point. This piece is cut at both ends and is 23" in length.

Another piece of "border" - a straight piece this time but with both ends cut just beyond the picture. This is the same depth as the piece in the last picture and measures 23".

I wish I knew more about these pieces, why my Nana had crocheted them and what she had intended to do with them, but I suppose this is a mystery that cannot be solved.

I would love to do something with these pieces, incorporate them into something so that they can be put on show rather than just kept in a box as they have been now for at least the last 48 years since my Nana passed away. Unfortunately I have never been able to really think of anything that I could do with them, any suggestions would be most welcome.

Durham Quilts

When I was a child I had a Durham Quilt on my bed. It was to my childhood eyes warm, comfortable and functional but meant little more. Unbeknown to me then the quilt was made by my paternal grandmother.

My Nana Barrow died when I was only five and I have few memories of her, though my one clear memory is sitting on the couch with her while she crocheted and allowed me to thread the contents of her lovely and fascinating button drawer onto a piece of knotted embroidery cotton.

Time passed and the quilt was relegated to a cupboard as more fashionable bed linen in the form of the "continental quilt" (duvet) took over.

When I set up my first home money was tight and I was grateful for whatever I was given. I was given some of mam's old bedding, and yes you've guessed one of the things I was given was Nana Barrow's Durham Quilt. As soon as I could afford to the old fashioned bedding was replaced, but I kept the quilt because it was made by my Nana and it was the only thing that I had that was hers. I'd like to say I kept it because of it's beauty and an appreciation of the work that had gone into making it, but I am ashamed to say I just didn't see it like that at the time.

As I grew older (and maybe wiser???) I took out the quilt one day and laid it on the bed and really looked at it. I realised that the patterns all over the surface of the quilt were handstiched and the realisation struck me that this was an amazing handcrafted work of art.

This marked the beginning of a love affair with Durham Quilts and I now have a small collection of five Durham Quilts. Of course the one my Nana made will always be my favourite, but by far my best bargain so far was the second quilt I acquired from a Salvation Army shop for the princely sum of £1.50.

Now maybe your wondering where I'm going with this post?

My latest acquisition -

This is the main picture of the quilt as it was pictured on EBay. The seller did make it clear that the quilt had however been "tampered" with and someone had in the past covered the other side with and bound the edges with a rather inappropriate fabric, and, furthermore they had machine sewn the addition - hence the vertical straight lines of stitching that can be seen on the pictures above and below. Because of this however the quilt was cheap enough for me to take a chance and see if I could restore it in some way.

More before pictures -

I initially just unpicked a corner of the cover and was delighted to find that it unveiled a beautiful original paisley patterned fabric and much more unpicking later revealed ...

Most of the fabric that was under the cover was in very good condition, however a section of about 5 inches in the centre of both the top and bottom is badly worn - this will be the reason for the cover. Also the original quilt must have already been shortened to remove earlier sections of wear. The quilt will still be a good size if I remove the worn parts but will no longer be long enough to use as a bedspread, so I intend binding the edges with a suitable complimentary binding and using the quilt as a throw. The colours will complement those in my sitting room perfectly and ...

...my little female cat Esme definitely approves!

More Pillowcases

Today I received a pair of vintage pillowcases that I bought off eBay for only £2.99 plus £2.50 postage.

I absolutely love them, they are a gorgeous creamy colour with really bright colourful applique on the edges.

The colours are much brighter and more vibrant in real life - I just can't wait till I change my bedding and put them on. Who'd have thought I could get so excited over a pair of pillowcases!

A Vintage Start to the Day

I am still on holiday from work until September, but Dave has returned to work and the only daughter still living at home is working, so when I get up in the morning I have the luxury of having the house to myself. Now as you might have guessed I just love collecting bits and pieces of pretty vintage china and housewares, but for me these aren't items to be simply stored away or set out on display to catch the dust, but things I like to use and treasure. This morning I decided to treat myself to a leisurely breakfast - nothing fancy just some wholemeal toast spread with butter and heather honey, but with a nice big cafetiere of real coffee to wash it down with. What better way to make an occasion of breakfast than by setting my vintage tea tray that I bought yesterday with pretty china and a flower from the garden.

This is my idea of luxury - simple I know, but using pretty things from the past that I continue to love and treasure.

Charity Shopping & Crafting Sunday

Well despite today dawning beautifully sunny my other half pointed out (rightly - unfortunately!) there were too many jobs needed doing for us to venture out for the day. I had to content myself with combining a mini food shopping excursion into the next village with a visit to their one and only charity shop, which, lucky for me is open on a Sunday. As it turned out the visit was quite rewarding. I came away with the lovely vintage tray pictured below for only £2.

I also got a floral print Monsoon maxi skirt for £3, a blue tie dye effect Jordash top, which will look great with jeans for £3, an Anokhi for East blue printed quilted jacket with a matching maxi skirt £3.50 for the set and a yellow Red Herring blouse for only 50p which will be ideal for when I return to work in September.

After my shopping trip I decided to finally make the table runner I've been promising to make for ages. A couple of years ago I bought a large Indian patchwork wall hanging - at least when I say wall hanging that is what I bought it as, but when it arrived it was huge. I contemplated using it as a bedspread - it would easily cover a double bed with lots of overhang, but it is very very stiff.

Sooo... it has hung around at the back of a cupboard, waiting till I could decide what to do with it. I would like to end up cutting it down so that some of it can still be used for the wall hanging I originally had in mind, but I needed to find a use for the rest. It was while I was in Newcastle one day, window shopping in some of the fancier - hence pricier shops, that I saw a dining table runner in similar Indian patchwork.  I can't remember exactly how much it was but it was upwards of £30. I promised myself that I'd get around to using some of the wall hanging to make myself a similar runner, but never really got motivated to do so - till today...

...finally!

Vintage Bargains

Today we went to the market at Tynemouth Station. Tynemouth Station is a wonderful partly restored Victorian station, which is currently in use as a Tyne and wear Metro station. At weekends however the platforms are transformed with the hustle and bustle of a fantastic eclectic market. The stalls predominately sell vintage items, though increasingly there is a good selection of people selling artisan food products.

I couldn't resist a wonderfully rustic loaf of ciabatta bread and a similar sourdough loaf, both baked using traditional methods and organic flours and from the same stall a wonderful lemon tart. Then there was "scone mad" a small business that produces a bewildering array of scones all made using the same basic recipe of flour, butter, water, pinch of salt and egg for basting. They have a range of 100 different varieties! we bought four - Bacon egg and black pudding, smoked sausage and cheese, cheese and leek and cheese bacon and onion.

As well as the yummy food , I also picked up some brilliant bargains:

• The four cup/saucer/plate trios pictured at the start of this post, for £1 each.


• A Brexton picnic set pictured above for £12- In a lovely green and white spotted case with white and green spooted china. It is all intact however one of the cups has been repaired and one of the flasks has it's inner broken. I'm going to be on the look out for a couple of suitable replacement flasks, possibly vintage but so long as they fit in well with the rest of the set I won't mind.


• Two sets of vintage embroidered pillowcases. One set still in the box and wrapped in the original cellophane, the other set still in the base of the original box but without a cover. These were £7.50 for the two sets. I have pictured these as they were bought below and also added a picture of the set that were fully boxed already on my freshly made bed - I just couldn't wait!!

All in all today has been a lovely day : )