When my Granny had to move to a home, and after we had finished cleaning out my grandparents' house we had a big pile of things to find new homes for; many really beautiful things that found instant homes in the children's and grandchildren's homes, some things for charity, and some things that were too personal and beautiful to toss out, but really had no useful purpose for anyone.... one of those items was a beautiful paisley silk tie once belonging to my grandfather. Mum gave it to me, saying something like "here, you could use this lovely fabric for something or other if you like".
Obviously I wasn't going to toss it out but equally obviously you can't just drape a tie over your couch as an ornament. But I still felt like it was important and needed to live on somehow. Bit of background applies here; my grandfather used to own and run a highly respected menswear store in London, and later here in Perth, so he always wore the most beautifully tailored suits and shirts. So to me this wasn't just an old tie really, but much more; a symbol of intrinsically who my grandfather was, a representation of his life and his trade.
Obviously I wasn't going to toss it out but equally obviously you can't just drape a tie over your couch as an ornament. But I still felt like it was important and needed to live on somehow. Bit of background applies here; my grandfather used to own and run a highly respected menswear store in London, and later here in Perth, so he always wore the most beautifully tailored suits and shirts. So to me this wasn't just an old tie really, but much more; a symbol of intrinsically who my grandfather was, a representation of his life and his trade.
Now, a tie has only a very small amount of fabric in it. Not enough for anything much. I thought about what to do with it quite a lot, before deciding to be brave enough to cut it up...
And I made a cushion cover for Mum to have, so she could still have the fabric there to look at as a little memento of Grandpa about the house. I took this picture of it in Mum and Dad's house the last time I was there.
So this is a patchwork design known as Cathedral Window; used to showcase small pieces of really beautiful fabric like this. The backing fabric is calico. The design is interesting, because you end up needing like three or four metres of calico for one little cushion cover, and just mere scraps for the "showcased" fabric. You cut huge squares of the calico and fold them in an intricate origami style design, down into much smaller squares in which is sewn the little pieces of beautiful fabric. I remember having to be quite clever to cut the tie strategically to get sufficiently large squares for the cushion. It measures 50x50cm, and has a cream coloured dress zip on the back for a cushion insert. The top is completely hand-sewn.
