All great ideas and beautiful embroidery!

I have taken the hand-embroidery and crocheted edges of tablecloths and the eyelet-type work and used it in valences for draperies. For example a white-on-white linen hand embroidered table cloth I cut into 4 triangles, gathered each triangle over a red-white-candy-stripe under-valence and tied with a red satin ribbon in the center...etc. Wasn't a quilter then! Unfortunately there was 'water penetration' and the antique tablecloth got huge brown stains.

Better to use these antiques where they are unlikely to get trashed. :(

Welcome to the board. Show us pictures when you do something with your treasures.

A friend just made a beautiful quilt using dresser scarves. Some had the crochet skirts. It really turned out beautiful. She used a mottled background and scattered the scarves around.

I have some embroidered blocks that my aunt did back in the 1950"s. Then, a friend gifted me some original 1930's petals already hand stitched and challenged me to do something with them. This is how I put them together. Show us what you decided to do with yours. They are beautiful.

This is probably why I've hesitated to do this for so long, but in my case I need to get over it - all of the things I have are items that have been damaged in some way or another (big stains, rips, large portions of embroidery destroyed/sun faded, etc.) and were given to me specifically to "make something" out of them in order to salvage them....but I still hesitate. My mom has a cedar chest that holds countless things embroidered by gran that are still in good shape, so this is truly the dregs...but still haven't been brave enough to take scissors to them! I think I need to be inspired first.

A friend of mine uses vintage linens in custom-made vests.

Maryb119, your quilt is fantastic!