Tea Bags and Hankies

 My friend Linda owns a beautiful old hotel in Calico Rock and gives me the most wonderful treasures.  She has given me bits of lace and old hankies, old jewelry, and other tiny delicacies.  I love these tidbits of the past - and try to find ways to use them in my quilts.

So the other day I opened my drawer that contains tea bags - and a sweet little hankie also dropped out.  It was stained but had the loveliest bit of lace around the edge.  I decided that the tea bag and the hankie were meant to be together in a new little art quilt.

The first thing that I did was to trace a drawing from my wonderful copyright free book of drawings of plants onto the tea bag.  I colored the drawing with colored pencils and then used Misty Fuse to adhere it to the middle of the hankie.

The hankie was then fused (also using Misty Fuse) to a piece of fabric without fusing the lacy edge.  Then I added beads from an old pearl necklace.  I don't think the pearls are real - but that doesn't really matter.

I used some of the fancy stitching on my Bernina to add the pretty pink stitches around the tea bag and secure that edge.  I like the way it brings the pink of the flowers out into the piece.  This stitching was also part of the quilting for the piece.  The other quilting line was around the inner edge of the lace hanky.

The piece is tiny but very very sweet.  I will give it to Linda soon and hope that she enjoys it as much as I enjoyed making it.      barbara