Many of us inherited a big amount of lace clothes from our great grandparents and grandparents which they cleaned, stored and starched with ultimate care. These collections contain pieces in several sizes, forms, thickness and colors. What can we do with them if we don’t want to sell them because of the memories? There are many possibilities for reusing them.
Old lace clothes were made of cotton by hand. It doesn’t worth to cut them because they almost immediately unravel. But they are easily dyeable and this way they could be fitted to the color palette of the room.
Let’s stitch the lighter, smaller pieces to each other by their edges and make a curtain of them. It doesn’t matter if the bottom or side of it is not straight. We can make it from even round shaped clothes, the outcome will be more unique. We can decorate the simple, plain lampshade with lace also. The simplest way: stick a narrow shelf stripe lace on the bottom of the shade for the vintage mood. Even the original fabric can be removed from the frame and the lace itself can be sewn to its place, but the lace has to be carefully starched before the procedure.
Let’s sew a patchwork-like blanket from the bigger, heavier clothes. If we don’t have enough for this, we can combine them with any cotton fabric. For example lace inset can be placed as decoration in the middle of the blanket, as overlay on the bottom or as edge on the four sides of it.
Let’s have a glass cut for the coffee table, flower stand or console table and put the showy lace clothes between the glass and the top of them. This way they will be protected from dirt but fulfill their function.
We can hang smaller laces in picture frames on the wall. If we don’t want to alter the white color of the clothes but the wall is white also, we can use colored mat board or ornamented frames for highlighting them.
Handmade objects made of quality materials are always valuable even if they don’t fit to our home. However, we can still enjoy them with a little fantasy, handiness and expending little time. Ask for help of an interior designer for more ideas of reusing them.