May was a fast-moving blur while I was kicking off my summer season. I had several restorations coming in, enjoyed our annual Fiber Day celebration at the Folk Art Center and the kick-off to the annual Brevard Music Festival. Patrons had a lovely reception with previews of several of the operas and an opportunity to visit with new and returning students and members of the faculty. A musical taste of special things to come! My absolute highlight of this year’s season will be Yo Yo Ma’s farewell concert in early August; he has always been on top of my list of favorite classical musicians.

I am also very excited about the Marriage of Figaro performance, which was a staple for summer festivals in Europe. It’s been a long time since I saw it performed in Salzburg, everyone in formal attire as if attending a royal wedding. So it was only natural to bring those lovely outfits to the Casino in Baden-Baden, where one was required to dress in formal wear to gain entry. They have loosened their rules somewhat, but evening wear is still suggested for entry and rental places are doing a brisk business. My father enjoyed playing roulette, he didn’t mind the 2-hour trip across Austria to Southern Germany. Brevard will be a trip down memory lane for me this year!

Fiber Day at the Folk Art Center on May 9^th. was the usual exciting event that brings everyone from silkworms to llamas together. We had a great turnout and I saw a friend who had just returned from Europe. She especially enjoyed an excursion to Croatia, where nuns make lace from local agave leaves. Most of us are familiar with the drinkable form of agave; however, these nuns split the leaves to separate the sticky fibers and stitch the final delicate agave strings into Croatian lace. The Benedictine nuns in the town of Hvar are the only ones who make the Hvar lace, which is also called “aloe lace.” My friend found it to be an interesting counterbalance to the crochet Irish lace she saw being created by the nuns in southwest Ireland.

As usual, I demonstrated Broomstick lace and Hairpin lace, but I had several thread lace and Irish lace pieces on display. This time my most popular items were lacy and bullion baby booties and caps, as well as my Magic Hankie, which is a linen handkerchief, bordered by white, pink or blue crochet lace, fashioned into a bonnet to be worn by the baby on the way home from the hospital or any other very special occasion. When the child grows up and is ready to marry, the gathering threads are snipped, and the hankie is used as something old or something blue. The bonnet comes with a beautiful poem and a bible reference from Mark 10:16. This makes a very lovely old-fashioned gift for the new arrival. It is pictured and offered for purchase in the baby section of my Heirloom Treasures Boutique on this website. Go to: https://heirloomtreasuresfiberarts.com/ht-boutique/

Round Irish Lace Tablecloth

My first May restoration was a beautiful round Irish Lace tablecloth with lots of broken thread connectors. The owner was wondering if machine washing in a delicate cycle might have caused this kind of damage and yes, it does. The weight of the water creates too much stress on the delicate connector threads, and I always remind my customers to secure their delicate lace pieces in a zippered mesh bag or duvet cover to distribute the weight of the water. Thankfully I was able to reconnect all broken threads and connectors on this lovely piece and have a very happy customer.

Antique Family Wedding Hankie

Just after the Irish tablecloth I received a very fragile antique wedding hankie, which had been passed down through generations and used at all family weddings. The last bride left a generous amount of lipstick in the linen center, but I knew to shore up the fragile batiste fibers with delicate embroidery surrounding it, before attempting to remove the lipstick from the linen. Tiny embroidered flowers needed to be reattached and shored up, as well as some old fashioned invisible mending on the batiste. When everything was securely back together, I put the hankie in a large pie plate and treated the stain with Oxy Clean Max spray. The linen responded kindly by dissolving every bit of the lipstick. I added some Woolite and warm water and let everything soak in the pie plate for a few minutes. After a long and careful rinse in clear water, the silver hankie was gently rolled up in a white dishtowel to absorb most of the water and then dried flat on another towel. After a gentle steam press with my trusty Sunbeam iron it was good as new. Again, my customer was advised of the fragile state of her hankie and I recommended having it framed, with air space please, to continue passing it down in the family in a secure fashion.

Antique Baptism Gown Restoration

While I was working on the hankie, I received a baptism gown, very much like the one I restored earlier this spring. The bodice was almost identical, but the skirt even longer and made from delicate Swiss Batiste. I used cotton underlayment and secured the sleeves to the bodice and the bodice to the skirt. All is secured now and ready to baptize the next baby in the family. At some point careful hand washing is recommended here, with no guarantees for a successful outcome.

I just finished a linen and machine embroidery tablecloth that was in excellent condition except for 2 large holes caused by rodent damage that was not discovered by the customer until they had eaten through the wall of a walk-in closet. There was a large brown stain, which needed to be treated before I attempted the fiber restoration. My customer treated the area with Oxy Clean and succeeded in removing all the brown discoloration. Then she sent the cloth to me to try and save her favorite tablecloth! I first stabilized both holes with matching linen underlayment, secured any loose embroidery threads and then duplicated the established pattern in the newly created linen underlayment. Everything went together perfectly and unless you knew exactly where the damage was, it is not noticeable. The customer gave me free reign about how to solve the problem, but I found it quite easy to fill the holes and replicate the embroidery.

Linen and Machine Embroidery Tablecloth: before and after restoration

Along with my restoration fun, our neighborhood held their annual garage sale. Unfortunately nobody checked the weather forecast and we had a wash out on Memorial Day Friday and Saturday. We did have some brave customers on Saturday but too many treasures are left, so we decided to have a repeat on June 6^th, one of my free weekends. By then it might stop raining! No one is complaining, we have been in a drought for too long and are grateful for the rain.

June will bring another garage sale, music and my next demo weekend at the Folk Art Center from June 11^th to the 14^th. Summer will be in full swing. I dream of fireflies and outdoor concerts at the Brevard Music Festival.

I hope you dream of summer in creative ways! Enjoy …………….