Photos and text by Corey Amaro
… why wasn't I scooping up the linens and lace and running home?
Natalie took her load of monogrammed linens, lace and vintage fabrics home. Before I could say, "What are you going to do with the linen….." Natalie took boxes of dye, her sewing machine, iron and started creating one-make-me-jealous-thing, after another. I sat in awe and drooled over myself. I asked her how she made those awesome colors, because they certainly don't look that pretty on the sample boxes. She told me, "It is easy, you need to play around with the colors. I mix a pinch of pink, a pinch of brown, a pinch of violet… and add a pinch of beige."
"Oh I see, you are right, it is easy." I said, very sarcastically with a big smile.
You see she is an artist from the get go….pinching, clipping, staying focused, while I worried about cutting old fabric, making a mess with the dye and end up with boxes of linens in the cupboard.
I made lunch instead.
Rough, antique, hand spun linen piled up alongside of Natalie's armoire. Natalie grabbed some, cut some lace, dyed the linen and….
Presto, in a blink of an eye, pillows were created with the antique linen and lace, that she found that morning at the French brocante.
I thought about the handicap I have… (cutting old linen and lace) If I want to make pillows, I have got to get over that… though, even so, the dye pinching thing really has me baffled.
Dyed French bed linens, in shades of rose and watermelon.
I wondered if she mixed raspberries, cherries, peaches with a pinch of fig in the dye mix to get that color? These were my thoughts as I tossed the fruit salad.
Here is a sampling of lace I have that sits in a box in the cupboard. Good place for it, gee I got to get it out and start pinching dyes. Then slap my hands into cutting it up.
OR
I could give it to Natalie, that would be easier.
OR
I could buy it from her. I think she should start to offer her linens online don't you?
Isn't it clever how she uses French antique chairs as mannequins to display her linens? Natalie covers the chairs with antique linen fabric as well.
The next time I am antiquing I am going to buy monogram linen and dye it… if I repeat this two thousand times to myself maybe I will actually do it. Until then, I want to be the mannequin chair, no I want the chair….
Notes:
Please Sir, wonderfully Delicious, delightful, eye candy blog.
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