A few weeks ago I spent the night at my son Pete’s house. This was a first, and it was only the second time I’d been there. The first time was for the crab feast two years ago. (If you look at the last shot of the crab feast and compare it to the photograph below, you’ll see how much thinner I am now.)
In the guest room was a beautiful but badly worn throw pillow. Because my camera was in the shop being repaired, I had only my Flip video to use for showing you the state of the pillow.
As you can see, the stuffing was coming out at the bottom. The blue yarn cording was scuffed and scraggly. The gold metallic plate threads were broken in several places, with bits of gold thread hanging loose. The bugle beads were dull. And the whole pillow was covered with pet hair and dust. I offered to repair it and brought it home with me.
Here is the restored pillow.
I removed the stuffing and the tattered blue cording, and opened up the bottom edge completely. Fortunately, the blue soft cotton yarn I found online is a very good match with the light blue flowers. I got rid of the metallic gold thread of the border, replacing it with DMC gold metallic pearl in chain stitches exactly the same length as the original stitches.
The gold flower centers were unevenly stitched in the same gold I’d removed from the border, so I took them out and replaced them with satin stitches in the DMC metallic pearl. The dull gold bugle beads had been attached with black thread. To give them some glitz and glimmer, I ran a fine Kreinik gold cord through them.
In this close-up detail, you can see the new gold centers in the red flowers and you can see the difference in the light now reflecting from the bugle beads.
Karin’s mother bought the pillow some years ago in Europe. She thinks it came from Romania. It certainly is Eastern European folk art in style. The stitching is well-done satin stitching in soft cotton or wool yarn. Because the surface has been somewhat scuffed, I can’t be sure. The fabric is black wool twill.
It was fun to work on repairing/restoring this pillow, and I’m still enjoying seeing it in my room.
Now here’s a shot of the whole family at Pete’s house that Saturday night I spent there.
Click on it to see it larger at Flickr.
Luke, on the left, is now at Reed College where he matriculates this week. Pete with Noah is on my other side, then Michelle, who’s a junior at SUNY Purchase College, and DIL Karin
Happy time with Pete’s family.