Vintage Christmas Tablecloths on the Clothesline

Season's Greetings

Vintage Tablecloth Display ~ My Collection

Vintage Tablecloths on the Clothesline

Feedsack Aprons on the Clothesline

Freshening Up Old Quilts on a Beautiful Sunday Afternoon

The Gingerbread Cottages of Martha's Vineyard

Oak Bluffs, Massachusetts

Season's Greetings from Vintage Linens

Broderie Tablecloth

Vintage Broderie Tablecloths are highly sought after by collectors.  This Red White and Blue cloth was made during the 1930s, and I thought it would be perfect to show this 4th of July.  

Vintage Linens on Etsy

Antique Sewing Machine and Lamp

Vintage Sewing Tin

Sewing on St. Patrick's Day

Cleaning Old Quilts

When cleaning old, fragile quilts, place a bed sheet on the bottom of your bathtub to rest the quilt on. Test for colorfastness then soak with your favorite detergent for at least 6 hours. Do not agitate. Let dirty water drain. Fill tub again and soak overnight. Rinse, Rinse, Rinse. Use the sheet to lift the quilt to prevent the fabric from tearing. You'll need lots of towels. Place quilt between towels while pressing to transfer some of the water. On a bright, warm sunny day, gently place outside on the lawn to dry.

Vintage Handkerchiefs ~ The Whimsical and the Elegant

Handkerchiefs have been around for thousands of years, but the most common we find today are hankies from the first half of the twentieth century.

There are so many different kinds for every taste. Some people may collect just one theme or a favorite color, and many love to collect designer hankies. Some popular themes were maps of the fifty states, children and animals, political hankies, floral, fashion and hankies for the holidays. Some were sold in cards ready for gift giving, there were hankies with calendars and horoscopes, and many actually gave advice such as how to get a husband and how to speak French. A few popular designers from this era were Tammis Keefe, Carl Tait, Pat Prichard and Tom Lamb. Did you know that Tammis Keefe worked pseudonymously under the name Peg Thomas?







Beside fun and kitschy handkerchiefs are the beautiful and dainty hankies with hand made lace, crochet and embroidery. You can find them from Madeira with elegant monograms or from Switzerland with exquisite embroidery. Many were made from the finest Irish linen and the hanky with the colorful embroidery is from China.







Our mothers and grandmothers delicately crocheted and tatted these textile treasures and adorned them with hand embroidery and lace. Daughters would carry a fine, white linen and lace hanky on their wedding day. Antique wedding hankies, carried only once then tucked away for safe keeping, can still be found in mint condition. Two of my most treasured were given to me by my mother-in-law for the birth of my first child. Sewn into baby bonnets with satin ribbons attached, they are affectionately displayed on my nightstand.







I love vintage hankies! I carry one always and pin one to my purse with a matching rhinestone brooch to compliment my outfit for the day. They can be used on shelves as colorful or elegant doilies, made into aprons and quilts, doll clothes, accent pillows; they may be used as intended or decoratively framed to showcase their whimsy and beauty.

Vintage Linens ~ Featured Shop on the Etsy Vintage Blogspot

Featured Shop of the Day: VintageLinens!


Today we are featuring 'vintagelinens', who has one of the best collections of vintage and antique linens and needlework I've seen yet. In addition, we will show you some of the great vintage clothing from this beautiful shop.
Below we have a selection of pieces done in cutwork (a method of cutting open the shapes of a design on the linen, which are then embroidered around the edges), filet lace, one set trimmed with Battenburg tape lace, all in excellent condition and the hand detailing is just beautiful:

Next are 2 examples of bobbin lace, a very complicated and labor-intensive method which involves weaving the threads, which are wound on long bobbins and criss-crossing them in various ways to form the pattern. While being worked, the lace is pinned to a cushion called a 'ham' and often involves dozens of bobbins to make one design. Fascinating, highly detailed and very beautiful!

'Vintagelinens' also carries vintage clothing, and here are a few examples of what you can find at the 'vintagelinens' shop. These are 'Maxi' dresses from the 1970s; the 70s saw the rise of the 'Maxi' and 'Midi' skirt, in response to the 'Mini' of the 60s, which over time, got shorter and shorter until there was hardly any skirt at all :-)
The birth of the Maxi and Midi reversed this trend, but retained the bold patterns and bright colors that made 60s fashion so special..

Vintagelinens also has a great assortment of vintage jewelry and accessories, and you should rush over to the shop to see everything.
The EtsyVintage Street Team
(Where Vintage ROCKS!)
Posted by artsfarm on Etsy

Vintage Feedsack Aprons

Feedsacks, also known as grain bags, were a staple of farm life in the early 20th century. They were fabric sacks which stored grain, flour, animal feed and the like. When the companies realized that women were using the fabric for sewing, they started producing beautiful floral, geometric, and brightly colored sacks. Homemakers would choose what they thought were the prettiest and use the feedsacks to make household linens such as quilts, aprons, dresses, curtains,and more. Here are a few aprons from my collection and all were made by the same woman, probably during the 30's and 40's

Polka Dots and Bows

Close-Up


Geometric with Stylized Leaves

Close-Up


Aqua with Red, White and Pink Florals

Close-Up


Geometric with Florals

Close-Up

Marghab Embroidery

Marghab is considered to be some of the finest hand embroidery in the world. The company was founded on the Island of Madeira, Portugal, in 1933, by the husband and wife team of Emile and Vera Way Marghab. Only the finest linen from Ireland and Switzerland were used. Working with Swiss weavers, the Marghabs created a special material that Vera described as "clear, crisp, true and easy to launder". This fabric was woven exclusively for the Marghabs. They called it Margandie and it gave them a distinctiveness that was associated only with Marghab linens. The embroidery threads were from France and many of the colors used were exclusively produced for a particular design. When the linens were ready for embroidery, they were brought from the factory to the countryside homes of skilled embroideresses who were paid by the stitch! Some pieces could contain as many as eighty-five thousand stitches and could take embroideresses months to complete. It was said that more than eighty percent of the female population on the island was employed in embroidery and girls learned the art from their mothers at a very early age. There were close to three hundred pattern designs and each of them was named. The linens were sold only in Madeira or to exclusive salons selected by the Marghabs for their reputation for excellence and quality. Among these were George Jensen, in New York, Constance Leiter in Kansas City and David Jones, Ltd. in Australia. After Emile's death in 1947, Vera Way Marghab continued with the business until 1980 and demanded nothing but "perfection" from the factory work, the embroideresses and the salons they were sold in. She died in 1995 at the age of ninety-five.

Much info taken from the book "Perfection Never Less, The Vera Way Marghab Story" by D.J. Cline.




Delphinium



Flower Woman



Hortensia

Concha

Rose Tree

Welcome to my New Website

Linens by Marghab

The following is from a tiny booklet titled "Linens by Marghab" that came with a Georg Jensen box of two fingertip towels in the Plume pattern:

"Lift out of its box your Marghab Linen... Hold it in your hands and look at it... What you see appears to be an exquisite hand-embroidered piece worthy of the most careful Collector's choice... It is a part of the world-famous Marghab Collection of hand-wrought Linens. But look again and see what qualities there are which make Marghab distinct, time-less and pure... You will see a fineness of fabric, a beauty of design, a precision of stitch, perhaps a glow of color... all this and more... for Marghab is the outcome of an inspired purpose and the acceptance of a great challenge.

Imagine a Portuguese Palacio on the Island of Madeira where vast bolts of glowing colored linen from the famed looms of Northern Ireland... a myriad of colored threads from France... sheer Margandie, masterpiece of Swiss weavers... all are assembled to serve as backgrounds for the Marghab designs... In turn each piece reaching the patiently trained peasant hands of a Marghab embroideress, will come into its own individual perfection... Picture her taking stitch by stitch so that you may own a precious piece of Marghab.

But why "precious"?... And what should "fine" really mean?... In answer to this far-reaching questions, two young people... Vera Way, of American pioneer descent and Emile Marghab, her husband, reared in the crusading British tradition... both thinkers, artists, scholars, doers... found the Marghab organization... Here everything was to be tested by the same high standard... not only the things which the eye can see ~ materials, threads, designs and workmanship ~ but also those all-important things which the eye cannot see... and which they believed would equally determine the fineness of the product... Today Marghab is making history.

The Marghab Collection stands alone, unique and beautiful... From it designs have been chosen by the Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York City as part of their permanent collection.

Every piece of Marghab is an original... No piece less fine than any other... Whether it is a towel, a handkerchief, a set of place mats or a lovely table cloth... each reflects the whole of Marghab... Look once more and cherish what you hold because of what it represents...

The Marghab Shop ~ Georg Jensen , Inc. 667 Fifth Ave., New York"