A new Life for Grandma’s Doilies
- By Joan
- May 9, 2018
- 2 Comments
Months ago my sister passed on to me this box of hand crocheted doilies created by my mom, grandmother and I think there may even be one or two from my great grandmother. Because of their sentimental value she didn’t want to just get rid of them. If I had any ideas for what to do with them I was welcome to have them.
The doilies, with their intricate designs, were used on top of dressers, beneath lamps, on arm cushions and the backs of sofas. They are beautiful works of art and like snowflakes, no two seem to be alike.
The craftsmanship and attention to detail is amazing.
Having said all that, doilies are not quite my style. But that doesn’t mean I can’t turn them into something that would better blend with my chippy paint and rust.
One can never have too many pillows, so a pillow will be my first doily project. It would also make a great Mother’s Day present if you haven’t decided on a gift yet.
Considering the lack of yellowing on the above crocheted piece this one may have been made by my mom. It was probably used as a runner on top of a dresser.
The runner wasn’t wide enough to cover a pillow in just one piece so I had to cut it in half. I don’t know how much these things unravel if you cut them, so I just used my sewing machine to run two lines of zigzag stitching on either side of where I wanted to cut.
I don’t know if I needed the zigzag stitching, but I must say nothing unraveled when I cut the table runner in half.
I sewed the two sides together to make a square and ironed flat.
Cut two pieces of fabric for your pillow about an inch wider and longer than your desired pillow. For a 16″ pillow, cut 2, 17″ fabric squares.
Sew the newly formed crocheted square to the front side of one of your fabric squares.
I’m not going to go into a great amount of detail on how to make a pillow, I’ll leave that to the folks on the internet who are much better sewers than I am.
That being said…with right sides together, sew your pillow leaving an opening to turn the pillow right side out.
Clip the corners and turn.
You may or may not like the seam going up the center of the pillow where the two sides were pieced together. I decided to cover mine with a little trim ribbon and some of the excess edging I had cut off the crocheted doily.
I used hot glue to attach first the crocheted part followed by the jute ribbon. I opened up the seam where they met the sides of the pillow and tucked the ends in, resewing the seam by hand.
Since I had enough of my pillow fabric leftover, I decided to tackle one of the round doilies.
This time I used the sewing machine to stitch around the perimeter of the doily directly onto the front side of one of my fabric pieces then constructed my pillow as above.
If you need more pillow inspiration, make sure you check out Mom’s old letters pillow, GPS coordinates pillow , dad’s sweater pillow, and my heirloom pillow. All are personalized and all would make great gifts.
Stay inspired and Happy Mother’s Day.
Shared at Metamorphosis Monday,
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Looks great Joan. Thanks so much for my amazing pillows!
Quite a few years back, I made my mother some pillows with placemats my grandmother had crocheted. She LOVED them. I have them at my house now that my mother has passed away.