Hummel Pillow - Up Cycling

As you know I love a good find at the second hand stores & during one of my adventures, I found this crewel embroidery of a Hummel figurine that was completed in 1976. I just loved the work that someone had spent many hours doing & knew I could recycle it into something else. I removed it from the plastic frame & gently washed it in Greenworks (that's the sudsiest soap I've ever use, use just a bit) The picture came from a home that had smokers, which was so common in the 70's. I too was one of those people, I quit smoking in 1992 after 22 years of smoking, not an easy task!  The piece was cleaned, air dried, & pressed, I made piping to go around the frame line /wear line, then lined it with some scrap broadcloth & a piece of batting for the piece to rest on. Once sewn I turned it right side out & made a quilted front for the new cameo medallion, to be hand sewn to the grid pillow.  The grid on the pillow was done using 2" painters tape, it's a fast easy, reusable accurate line to follow. Piping was made again in the same fabric, which is left over drapery fabric from the drapes a made a couple of years ago. And Voila! Up-cycling is done, now I've just the back to make. 

  I love the work that HB did back in '76 & now enjoy it as stylish cameo pillow in my living room.  Next time you see a cross stitch or crewel work, think of it in another form,  a pillow, purse, bag, in a quilt & more ideas will come. I'm working on a bag with a cross stitch piece of three polar bears, photos upon completion of that  sweet project. So many ideas...

Here are one of three drapes I made & lined with blackout liner, southwestern Ontario is a cooker in the summer & this 1918 house still has drafty areas when the north winds blow through the winter. These were the 1st painted rods that I did, some were mahogany, some silver in colour,  now all white  & look like they were purchased that way.