Fabricy stuff

A little while ago I found some rather unusual fabricy things. I was going to post about them then and there, but as I was already making Floss sick with my finds ( or my posts, lol ), I postponed blogging about them.

When I found these wonderful things, they were in a great pile on a table amongst some curtains and duvet covers. I spotted them from the other side of the room and made a straight beeline for them. I didn't look through them, I didn't haggle about the price, I just grabbed the whole pile, paid and stuffed them into my bag, just in case anybody else took a fancy to them.

The pieces smelled really musty (from very long storage ), they had brown storage marks and I am pretty certain that they were completely unused and had never been washed. Their colour was really dark, and the fabric and net embroidery were quite coarse and stiff. I think it is either hemp or a hemp linen mix, quite rustic, very country and absolutely fabulous.

These pictures show the pile of goodies as they looked before I washed them. A couple of pieces are quite a bit lighter and a lot softer, they seem to have been used and washed a good few times


I had no idea what I had bought until I got it all home and looked at the pieces. There was a tablecloth with a huge border of net embroidery and gorgeous little tassels at the corners, a long net embroidery table runner and 10 net embroidery placemats, all made from the same rustic country fabric and net embroidery threads. The large tasselled tablecloth has a very folksy border ( the motifs are very much like ones from old cross stitch samplers ), the table runner and place mats feature vine leaves and bunches of grapes.

Here they are after a very hot wash to remove the storage marks -


I photographed them on the bed, on a deep yellow gold eiderdown, as the dark colour showed up the pattern so much better. However, it doesn't show the colour of the pieces very well, so here is another photo of them on a whitish background, which shows the proper stone-y/caramel-y colour much better -

The brown storage spots are gone, the colour has lightened and they feel slightly softer already.

There was also another set of 8 placemats, again with vine leaves and grapes-

Two other large table runners had obviously been used and washed quite a number of times, they were much lighter, a gorgeous light cream colour and much much softer. One had vine leaves and grapes in the border and huge inserts of vine leaves, grapes and a couple of those folk motifs similar to the tasselled tablecloth. The other one only had the folk motifs, again in huge net embroidery inserts-


I also picked up a couple of nice doilies ( only photographed two ), and a piece of beautiful broderie anglaise, which looks like part of a nightdress case-


I did find some lovely buttons at the fair I was doing on the weekend, but you'll have to wait til tomorrow before I can show you, my doggies need cuddles right now, lol.

xx