Les coiffes catalanes part two, the completion

Remember this?

With the top completed of les coiffes catalanes, it needed embellishment and, well sort of quilted. The word quilting is used loosely since it is more like tacking and stab stitching. The piece is thick and comprises of many layers. Backing, stabilizer, a thick fabric cotton fusible, batting and then the top. The extra stabilizer is there since it will be a wall hanging and I want it to lay flat against the wall.

If one were to just use a backing, batting and then the top, this could happen. As you can see, it has happened to things I have made in the past. I hate that!

It is not pretty and several attempts to get this wall hanging to lay flat have failed. It is near a window and when the window is open air gets up behind and does this. No amount of weight on the bottom will help fix it. I have tried. Now I just smooth it out before company comes.

But enough of failures from earlier days, Onward to this new project.

The backing fabric is akin to Vichy but it is not. It is a local fabric which is used mostly in Alsace, but quite a bit here in the Lorraine region of France. It is a thicker woven with dyed threads as opposed to a dyed printed fabric.

Now for embellishing and completing my piece. As usual I have an assortment of things I can use. I have buttons, beads, trinkets and a variety of threads. 

I love taking this type of photo. All of the pretty things all in one place. The grey buttons on the card a bakelite. I still have not found the perfect project for them

I started with the beads. Recently Tess, a woman on one of my newsgroups, posted a picture of a mantilla that she had made. The lace is similar to one of the laces I used and she told me that the lace will tell you where to put the beads.  Here is her Mantilla:

 If you look closely you can see the seed beads and the pearls she used. Just Beautiful!

Taking her idea, I used little crystal seed beads and placed them where similar lace told me they needed to go. Hmm, not bad!

I have a magazine, Mon Ouvrage, from June 1952. On one of the last pages there is a pictorial article on embellishing little girls dresses and collars with buttons and embroidery. Here is the one of the ideas from the magazine:

Here it is on my piece.













I modified the idea just a little.

My buttons had four holes not two. I also had a long and narrow piece to fill. The thread is vintage silk I had in my stash.








Continuing around the wall hanging, Pearls were added.

My favorite second hand store had a pack of these vintage beauties. Part of the top design, a pivoted corners of lace was used. It was nice to be able to leave those pivot corners intact.



The pivots made a nice corner for some of the lace pieces and worked very nicely on the corners of some of the pictures. Best of all, the lace designed had flowers which cried out for the use of some of those pearls.

Continuing around the wall hanging, on one of the bottom open areas, bugle beads, buttons, pearls and silk ribbon worked well to add some interest.

There are a couple of open spaces left. they will either stay that way or maybe someday I will add to it. Right now I like it just the way it is.

Finally, it was bound using vintage lace that reminds me of footballs (American Football) It was sewn over the binding. The back has top and bottom hanging capability and it is a nice weight so hopefully it will hold itself agains the wall.

Here is the final result:

It's a keeper!