Here's the fabulous handkerchiefs. We found three perfectly sized double glass frames at Gordman's. I painted the frames to match. Obviously I'm still waiting for my mother to get the story written for the antique hankie. The double glass works great with the hankies. The glass is not perfectly sandwiching the hankies. I took the thin wood piece that usually sits behind the second sheet of glass and put it between the glass sheets. This gives the fabric of the handkerchiefs room to breathe so they don't fox or mildew. This meant I had to find a way to hang them since I didn't have the pressure of the glass to hold them in place. I used full strength liquid starch. the starch will not harm the fabric or lace but does stick the fabric to the glass perfectly. The large poly-cotton hankie is only stuck at the corners. The other two were fully starched and then laid on the glass. I put my large cutting mat behind the glass so I could get them perfectly placed.
And my lovely photo framed professionally. I was going to go cheap with it but my husband had it done for me as a Christmas gift. It came out lovely didn't it?
Here's another angle of the room. You can see my Chinese lanterns in the corner and my big pile of pillows. I'm actually kind of proud of the pillows. I found four fabrics done by four different manufacturers that coordinate beautifully. I love being able to do that. It's so much more fun to put my own collection together than to just buy a pre-done set.
The curtains are inexpensive bedsheets. They have a nice stiffness to them that works for windows but would be awful on a bed. I trimmed the edges with a striped ribbon.
There are still more things to do. We need to replace the carpet some time soon. I'm leaning toward a wood laminate. We live in a neighborhood where that would be a standard choice, so I won't even feel like cheaping out. We also need to replace the back door. It's old, ugly and has never shut right. We'll probably do a single full light door. The window also needs framed out. When this addition was built they didn't do wood framing on the windows. There's only three windows so it shouldn't be hard to fix, I just need to get it done.
So there it is. My sitting room. It's not fancy and it's not perfect, but it's comfortable and it's the prettiest room in my house. Not bad for under $500, huh?
Wow, that's pretty nice. I really was interested in your "hankie" project. I came home from my Mom's with a bunch of very old lace doilies and hankies that my great-grandmother had tatted. Paula W was looking at them at was very impressed with a few of them. One is still attached to the paper it was made on! I want to definately get that one mounted nicely. Thanks for the cool idea!
ReplyDeleteyou should do something with them. I see hankies as one of the true womanly heirlooms. They are useful and yet beautiful. It's something our female ancestors actually held in their hands and kept as part of their everyday lives. So many of the everyday things don't get passed down because they got used up until they weren't "good enough" to save.
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