I purchased an antique crazy quilt top on ebay with the intention of making a shower curtain out of it. This quilt top has a silk ribbon on it dated 1898 and lots of detailed hand appliques, plus beautiful crazy quilt stitching throughout. However some of the silk pieces on the quilt were worn. Seeing as I don't sew a stitch, I wasn't sure where to begin. I ended up purchasing some premade embroidered appliques to sew on over the worn areas...things that were special to me (like golden retrievers, a bee skep, gardening tools, birds, dragonflies, flowers, snowflakes) and I hand-sewed them on. I also used the lace/pearls from my wedding dress and sewed them on too. I was going to buy black material to use as a border around the quilt and then sew buttonholes on top for the shower hooks, but ended up using a premade black shower curtain instead...that saved me a lot of time once I figured out how to piece the thing together!!! It looks great, and I'm really happy with it. It makes me want to do some more...I have two additional crazy quilt tops, but they're not nearly as detailed as this one. I may make some pillows out of them...maybe some of you have some ideas??? I can't believe I'm actually thinking about doing more sewing...it was never something I liked to do. I had to do a lot of hand sewing on this piece, and my fingers are calloused and bloody from holding the needle and thread!
I would have been too scared to hang such a beautiful quilt top in my bathroom in case condensation damaged it but I have to admit it's really lovely. Now that you've started to sew Kasey you could make all manner of things - curtains, cushions, door panels, bedding etc. I think you may just have been bitten by the stitiching bug!! A little tip that I find useful if I'm going to be hand sewing alot is to dip my fingers in surgical spirit for a few days before I take on a big task as it helps to toughen the skin up.
thats a lovely quilt ,I love the bees and hive on it I would never have thought of using it as a shower curtain very inventive. :-D