ragmin | Made of Rags

Weird Dress

Acctually I´m not so fond of this red & white combinations. (Of cause there ARE exclusions, like my Art Nouveau skirt!)

But they seem to like me. They follow me, wherever I go and always find a way to slip in my sewing room under the noses of my gards.

Seems, there is only one way to cast them out forever: Making a dress so weird, that those, that want to come in, get in a state of shock and avoid me from now on!

Now, here is the dress….let´s see if the plan works.

To make this dress I grabbed almost every piece of vintage red & white fabric in my stock. As you can see, there are napkins, doilies, towels, lace, ribbons, table runners and a damaged piece of peasant tablecloth. Nothing fabric is useless. You just need to know what do to with!

Art Nouveau Skirt

A double-woven piece of fabric around 1900 can make an interesting tunnel-skirt. Yes, it IS a bit bleached, has thin spots and one or two holes- But who cares…And the holes could be fixed.

Tablecloth-Skirt

A tablecloth, missing one third should go to the trash can, right?

I think, it would be a shame and a waste. I prefer to make a skirt from.

In this case, the tablecloth was antique, but you can also use modern pieces for this Project. All you need else are some long ribbons of cotton or silk and some scraps of lace for the eyelets.

Japanese Inspiration

Two skirts I made from many different scraps and pieces. The inspiration came from antique japanese fisherman´s jackets. Some of them were so often repaired and supplemented, that the original texture and colour can´t be seen anymore. They look like a conglomeration of scraps in every shade of Indigo, embellished with sashiko embroidery. That´s REAL recycling to me! And an art of it´s own.

Vintage Florentine

I hat a vintage florentine hat body from the 50s, but for a long time no concept, how to style it. Until I found this piece of antique straw trimming. It´s in a delicate condition and a bit damaged, but I decided to use it anyway for it´s beauty . It was a bit tricky working with it, but I succeeded!

Finally I got a cartwheel in a somehow 30s style.

The hat crown is hand shaped and I thought, some vintage japanese velvet leaves and milllinery flowers could be a good match.

Two in one with trimmings

Another of my cartwheels. I made this one with precious pieces of handmade furniture trimmings around 1900. They are a bit heavy and solid, but beautiful items and I decided to make the hat in a way, that allows me to wear it from both sides. So there is no front or back, but acctually two fronts….

The hatpin I made from some replica-egyptian revival beads.

Vintage Style Cartwheel Hat

To make this hat, I had to learn more about making millinery flowers and embellishment out of vintage ribbon. Luckily I had some ribbons in beautiful shades, perfectly matching with the dark red hatbody I wanted to use.

Memento-Bag

Some years ago I bought a lot of hardanger needlework from the 1940s in the net. When I oppened the bundle to clean it, I found a surprise. It was a little paper card with a womans handwriting on it, that says “In Gefangenschaft aus alten Lumpen gefertigt”, witch means ” Made of old rags during captivity”.

I tried backtracking, where it came from, but didn´t get far. The seller had it from a friend, whose late wife was a collector of such things. All she could tell me was, that the lot was stored for years in a cellar.

So I will never know, who the unknown woman was, that made this beautiful needlework and what the card is really to tell about her destiny. Was she a prisoner in a warcamp? A prison inmate? Was she detained of political reasons or was she a victim of the Nazi regime and locked in a conzentration camp?

There is no answer. But the refinement and care she took to make little works of art from grey rags, talk for themselves. Obviously she was a experienced needleworker, who never gave up hope. Some pieces from the bundle, made with colored thread and apparently originated later, make it clear, she not only survived the war time but got on to her joyful needlework after all.

To honor this unknown woman and to remember her, I took as much of the little needlework pieces and some of the colored ones, added antique linen on and made a Messenger bag .

For the centerpiece I copied her handwriting from the papercard as good as possible and embroidered it.