I’ve been buying vintage embroidery/crochet table linens/dollies which I bought to cut up and re purpose into new items for my shop. However most of what I’ve received to day are in excellent condition without blemish, holes or stains, in fact I’d go as far as to say they look like they’ve never been used and are in perfect condition.
It seems a shame to cut them when they are perfect, I was looking for the one’s that were damaged and needed to be made into new items.
So now I don’t want to cut into them and really want to use them and want to add them to my own dining room linen chest of draws.
Should I keep some, try and re sell some, of this package that arrived today.
The bundle that arrived yesterday, I’ve already taken out a few perfect pieces to add to my dinning room supply.
I have more to arrive yet which might be too good to cut up as well eeek
I’m a hoarder and if let loose, I will just collect and collect until you see me on one of those Channel 4 documentaries.
So I have a pretty simple rules - does this item bring joy to me? Keep it. If I love it, I love looking at it, and every time I think/see it I appreciate it then keep it.
No point having something that’s just going to lie in a drawer!
You could keep some, if you get fed up of them or they get damaged then sell them on or make something with them, if there are some that are perfect why not try adding them to the front of a plain cushion cover as a whole piece (might involve hand stitching if they’re particularly intricate but they would look very pretty)
The question is, will you use them as they are or will they just sit in a drawer? If the latter then use them as originally intended. Maybe you could replace some of your existing ones and use them for your crafts instead.
I had the same dilema when I inherited bags of doilies from my hubbies family home. All handmade by family members over the past 100 years! My advice is to keep them for a while and you will have a clearer picture of what you want to do with them. I appliqued some onto some Harris Tweed purses, makeup bags and lavender sachets and gave them to current family members. With others, I have decided that I can let them go.
I had that same problem last year, I wanted damaged pieces to repair for an exhibition but a lot of what is sold as damaged has nothing wrong with it. I ended up scouring ebay photos looking for snags, holes and unravellings - it really felt like cheating to damage them myself just so I could repair them again! I now have a box of left over pieces, not in bad condition but not quite perfect and I’m not sure what to do with them either…
Roz @OrchardFelts I think you might be on to something. I think I’ll keep the perfect one’s and use them to replace any of the not so perfect one’s in my table linen chest of draws and yes I do use them on my dining table only just not while we are still working on our conservatory.
Then all the non perfect one’s I’ll use for my re purposing. I want to make a skirt for myself, a patchwork quilt for myself, a cover for the Pray journal/diary I’ve been making. Then with what’s left of the non perfect piece’s I’ll use in items for my shop.
I collect vintage buttons, but if I have multiples of the same design (even if they are on a card ) I use them in my bead-work. You can only use perfect condition ones for this, so I suppose I am doing what you are baulking at-cutting up the perfect white doily. But the way I see it is that I collect my buttons from a design point of view, so having a full unused set makes no sense if they are all the same design. These things were made to be used and seen, so there is not point letting them languish unloved in a box somewhere.
Also, you are likely to loose yourself some money re-selling them when you intended to use them to make more items to list.
I say keep the ones you will use as table linen, and as for the others, cut away!
) I use them in my bead-work. You can only use perfect condition ones for this, so I suppose I am doing what you are baulking at-cutting up the perfect white doily. But the way I see it is that I collect my buttons from a design point of view, so having a full unused set makes no sense if they are all the same design. These things were made to be used and seen, so there is not point letting them languish unloved in a box somewhere.