We are always looking for unique pieces of furniture for our store. While in Texas we found some fabulous pieces and the germ of an idea was born. Two pieces of furniture arrived from France and had been stripped down to their frames because customs would not allow the pieces to enter the country with their original horsehair. The chaise lounge was built in 1912 and reupholstered in 1952. It will be transformed with the help of some of our vintage sheets and a talented upholsterer.

We also have a chair which will benefit from a bolt of vintage fabric.

And will lovingly care for the four dining chairs below.

Stay tuned as the transformation of these pieces begins. We’ll keep you updated as we move forward with the process which will culminate with the unveiling of the finished pieces.

Next up – see how vintage linens soiled over the years get a new lease on life with the help of a good soak in
Restoration

The transformation has taken place with the benefit of an excellent workroom and yards of vintage linen and French sheets.

Imagine yourself reclining on this beauty as you leaf through a good novel or your favorite travel book or just grab 40 winks in style.

Enjoy the eye candy!

Our armchair can go into almost any room with ease, den, bedroom or tucked up close to a fireplace.

Our set of four dining chairs with their simple, clean lines and neutral upholstery can be added to any decor style.

This vintage bench would make a welcoming sight in a foyer or mud room.

A stylish place to rest while pulling off rainboots!

In closing -  make a subtle yet elegant statement in any room in your home

with the addition of a vintage piece – you’ll have all your friends talking

(and jealous!).

Along with the furniture went our bolts of vintage fabric that had been bathed and lovingly ironed by one of our dedicated staff. Here are some photos of them in their “before” and “after” conditions.

"before" armchair fabric

"after" archair fabric

"before" chaise lounge fabric

"after" chaise lounge fabric

Stay tuned . . . . .

Of course we offer hundreds of doilies, runners, centerpieces, lace and more in our store… either ready for use, or ready for you to recycle.

1. Lace Votives or bowls

From Martha Stewart’s website

While this project is not strictly intended for doilies, since it calls for rectangular lace, we thought it was a great idea to adapt to a doily.  You could take the doily, and do exactly what the instructions suggest but with a doily, and get a similar effect.  You can also dye the doilies to get different shades and create an assortment.  Using different shades of pink or green for example, or going with a color theme.

The instructions can be found by clicking on the Martha Stewart link above.

2. Table Runner

From the Blog Desire to Inspire

This fun runner can be done in so many different ways. You can start with all similar color doilies or with a mish mash like the authors did – see here:

The instructions could not be simpler, and you can do anything as far as pattern, colors, shape etc goes. It would be a fun outdoor project with vats of color dyes.

Here are different looks using the same idea:

3. Pillows and/or Lavender Sachets

This is perhaps the simplest idea of them all. Just stitch a doily onto a plain pillow, with a tone on tone effect, or a contrast. Do the same with a small lavender sachet (make one out of 2 squares stitched together with an opening, stuffed with lavender and then stitched shut. You can stitch the doily to one of the squares beforehand).

Great and easy gift, or a way to turn a boring store bought pillow into something unique, personal and definitely one of a kind!

Sachets

Pillows

Pillow from Cafe Cartolina

This Shop on Etsy makes some wonderful pieces

4. A more elaborate pillow

We posted this idea a few months ago, courtesy of the Smile and Wave blog and we’re still smitten with it!

A bit more involved, but still easy, and the result is just stunning!

The tutorial is very, very well written and easy to follow.

5. Doily snowflakes.

This idea is one we’ve used in the past. We dipped doilies in fabric stiffener and used them as ornaments, simply by threading a ribbon through the top. This idea can be taken even further as shown here in the blog Linaloo

Keep reading to the bottom, she actually made a bowl (see #1 idea).

6. Doily Jars

Fun and unusual – turn ordinary glass jars into fun lights, or containers, or anything. Just glue the doily (on the inside or on the outside – the outside is of course where it goes if using it as a luminary).

Jars from Vintage Rose Brocante

6. Lighting

These are certainly unique. Wonderful ways to create lacy lighting

Via Adore Vintage Home

A little more involved, but a fun project, similar to the bowls since it also involved a balloon.

via For the Luv of Art and More Design Please

More interesting lighting

I am not sure where this came from so I cannot credit it yet.

Other ideas to try

via Style Me Pretty

Via Etsy

Via Etsy

Sweet Paul’s Blog has some fun uses for doilies as well, complete with tutorials:

Headband below:

Elsewhere, we found much to inspire:

Doily towels

Bedspread

Wedding dress:

via California Mountain Elopment

This purse would allow you to use even tiny fragments!

Via The Feathered Nest

via Snyggt Igen

We also have a chair which will benefit from a bolt of vintage fabric.

And will  lovingly care for the four dining chairs below.

Stay tuned as the transformation of these pieces begins. We’ll keep you updated as we move forward with the process which will culminate  with the unveiling of the finished pieces.

Next up – see how vintage linens soiled over the years get a new lease on life with the help of a good soak in
Restoration

You don’t have to be a vintage linens connoisseur or expert to love them and use them in modern homes for decorating and practical uses. If you haven’t tried them before, get ready, you’ll fall in love when you start.

It can seem daunting at first, but just jumping in and buying something small and easy, like the gorgeous little Boudoir or Bolster pillow shams is a great start. Buy a few that you like to make a grouping and you’ll be smitten.

These lovely little gems are usually smallish pillow shams, cushion covers, baby shams or bolsters and very easy to fill by using pre made pillow forms, poly stuffing from craft stores or you can recycle old pillow or cushion filling you have. Usually one of a kind, an eclectic mix is exactly what you’re going for.

Use them to create a look, by scattering a group of different fresh crisp vintage linen or cotton shams in a bedroom, sun room, daybed or guest room. They look especially gorgeous on wicker furniture and add a lovely fresh unique look to any decor.

Below we have a display of a few of our bedroom linens on a daybed creating a fresh country theme with red and pink accents plus some cute JellyCat plush animals to finish this chic vintage look.

Day Bed with Vintage Linens

We have beautiful cleaning solutions, linen sprays, pillow mists and storage products to get your linens crisp and beautiful, as well as smelling Summer fresh and properly stored when not being used.

Freshen Linens with Sprays

To learn more about European Vintage Linens, take a look at our information page that has a wealth of knowledge from our experts who lived in Europe for 35 years and personally buy, hand pick and bring back everything we have, direct from European estates, private homes and village markets all over Europe.

Don’t hesitate to contact us if you need us to make selections for you, groupings or need volume linens for bed and breakfasts, decorating, staging and displays. We can always help.

Enjoy !

French Linen Sheets as displayed in our store

We have worked feverishly to update the glossary and the results are wonderful (thanks Chez!).  Visit here to find out all about vintage linens from Europe:

Vintage European Linens Glossary

Pillow Wall in Store

Piles of creamy linen sheets in an armoire, softly scented and begging to be touched and stroked. Anyone who loves linens, will know what we’re talking about here!

Linen presses holding these stacks of linens, often monogrammed and very ornate. An old tradition in France and many European countries. Prior to the 14th century, linens were usually held in chests that could be transported more easily when changing residences. These chests became ornate pieces of furniture as people became more settled, and did not move around as much. The actual linen press as we know it today appears in 17th century paintings from Holland (linen country by excellence) showing the armoires with their white stacks.

The tradition of the ‘wedding armoire’ or marriage trousseau appears later. The armoire would be sculpted with abundance and fecundity symbols and hold the entire trousseau of the bride. Such an abundance was more than could be used in one lifetime, explaining how so many linen pieces appear to never have been used.

The word trousseau evokes images of a whole ceremonial preparation of embroidered linens (sometimes with an inventory number) with the future couple’s monogram, adorned with symbols (wheat for fecundity, roses for love etc). The trousseau was also a way to show wealth and was meant to be displayed to guests.

A lot of linens from Europe are made of linen rather than cotton, mainly because these countries (France, Belgium, Holland, Germany) are big producers of linen. Cotton is not grown in those countries, and was harder to come by and more expensive at the time.

Early 20th century catalogs from show lists of what any young woman had to prepare for her wedding. She could order the stencils she would use to draw her monogram, and run down the list that would include 12 dozen towels, 2 dozen sheets and so on. Down to the very last detail including nightdresses, but also nightdresses for pregnancy and nightdresses for breastfeeding. Even the poorest girl would start accumulating linens from the age of 8 onward. In some areas of France, tradition dictated a trousseau had to represented about 5% of the dowry! And the trousseau did not just include the linens for the bride, but also for her servants (rougher sheets for example!).

The monogram is a whole story in and of itself. It can be the monogram of the future husband (if the embroidery is done during the engagement). Or it can be the monogram of the young girl if done long beforehand (she did not usually know the name of the husband yet!). Today, it is a matter of personal preference. If you find your own monogram, that’s wonderful. A combination of husband and wife names works well also.

The embroidered monogram on a linen sheet is usually on the turn-down part (the part visible when the sheet is turned over the blanket), about 12 inches from the edge. It is most often done in heavily padded satin stitching, and adorned with flowers, leaves, curlicues and such. Only fine linen sheets and blends lend themselves to be embroidered, heavy homespuns and hemp are too thick to be handled easily. Every day sheets and bottom sheets were simply often done in red and in cross-stitch. Wedding sheets were made of the finest linen (lawn), and regular sheets of a thicker and more durable fabric. Later, cotton and linen blends were also used (called metis in French). Hemp and heavy homespuns were for servants.

There are countless books and pattern books about monograms, with designs, explanations and more. It is possible to actually see the evolution of styles through the pattern booklets offered to future brides.

We posted earlier about monograms, see this entry.

If you want to learn a lot more about French and European linens in general, by far the best book on the subject is Francoise de Bonneville’s ‘Le Livre du Blanc’. It is out of print, and most often can only be found in French but the illustrations and photographs alone make it worthwhile. There are paperback smaller editions readily available in English. The English Title is “The book of fine linen”.

This wonderful German invention essentially works like a small duvet and/or coverlet.  The baby is placed on the inside and the lower part is brought up over  the body.  The coverlet is secured to the ‘mattress’ part with ties – often decorative.

The nice thing about the wrap is that you can insert a blanket or thin duvet pillow to make it more comfortable, and to keep the baby warm.  These wraps were therefore very common in the Northern part of Germany, especially in Winter.

Today it is often used for baby carriages or dolls, for display.  But of course you can also always use it for the intended purpose, a Christening wrap! The more modern ones you can buy new today usually zip up, but the older ones have a special charm of their own with buttons and/or ties.

This show was probably the hottest one yet. We struggled for the first 2 days as we unloaded a gigantic truck.

The booth starts as a big empty space – almost 1,000 sq ft. In an old building with a corrugated metal ceiling, wood walls, beams, and wood floors. No air conditioning, sadly. In Spring not an issue but in Fall we’d probably sell our mothers for some cooler air indoors….

Here is the space as we prepared the ‘bones’

Once that part is done we go home and prepare for a long day ahead. This is when we start unloading merchandise. Tubs and tubs and more tubs.

We start before 7 AM and by noon we have a lot out already, and there are buyers around also…

Then the fun part begins – make it all pretty and attractive, clear and organized.

Almost but not quite there

This bed looks tempting after hours of unpacking!

Mannequins on the table – of course!

Shaping up!

Nice assortment of ‘Fresh Laundry’ Basket covers


Hundreds of beautiful antique French linen sheets

Fluffing

More fluffing

Ah, picture worthy at last

That gorgeous coverlet sold fast

As did the pillows


The bed goes through several transformations as items sell