Fragile Cloth

This is part of the old quilt I bought in Cromarty last week at my favourite antique shop. It was at the bottom of a throwaway box of torn and worn textiles probably from a house clearance.  It is very faded and fragile in parts and as it is just a top and a lining I believe it was used as a tablecloth during it's long life. The bits of food clinging to it were a bit of a giveaway. I laundered it very gently and just let it dry without pressing it. Some parts were disintegrating so I gently preserved these pieces. When I took the tissue thin lining away I realised how many times over it's life this cloth has been laundered.

It is so worn that it has become transparent when held up to the light.

 Using very tiny running stitches I have attached a more robust piece of the cloth to some cotton organza and I'm carefully stitching some of the more fragile pieces to the surface

There are some beautifully faded colours in this cloth which I hope to exploit with some simple stitching.

It feels sacriligeous to be cutting into this piece and if it were hand stiched I would probably have left it to gently rot. It has very little skill in it's construction and is quite crudely finished - but all the more charming for all that!