Make a Vintage Wall Hanging

 Hello Readers. I love vintage items, especially vintage textiles. I had my mother's baby blanket and I wanted to hang it. But it wasn't designed to hang on a wall. It was meant to be flat on a bed or crib. How could I hang it that would be gentle to the fibers of the fabric? I didn't want to damage it at all. Let me show you what I did. 

Vintage textiles need gentle treatment.

My mom was born in 1945 so this little baby blanket is about 80 years old. I loved the colors and design. It has been stored for a long time and I wanted to display it. 

This is a look at the back. There is no way to hang or display this quilt. Some quilts are made to display so they have loops to use hooks or a pocket to put a curtain rod in. This quilt didn't have anything like that. 

I had to add something to make this quilt "hang-able". I decided to add a casing/tube to put a curtain rod through. I decided to use this wide grosgrain ribbon. It was 2 inches wide. I needed to attach it to the top of the quilt on the back side. I chose white because it would match the fabric but it was on the back and no one would see it when I was done. 

I used clips to hold the ribbon in place across the top of the quilt. 

I folded the ends of the ribbon under twice to hide the cut end.

I thought it was best to attach this ribbon by hand. I didn't want the stitches to show through on the front of the quilt and a sewing machine might be to rough on the material. I do not like hand sewing and my stitches never look neat but this will all be hidden on the back of the quilt so it won't matter. I started at one corner and made stitches that went over the top edge of the ribbon and through just the back of the quilt. 

 

I did not want the folded ends of the ribbon sewn to the quilt. They need to be open for the curtain rod to pass through. I did sew the layers of ribbon together to keep them nice and neat.

I sewed back across the bottom of the ribbon to attach the bottom edge to the back of the quilt.

I put the curtain rod through the casing/tube I made with the ribbon. 

 

Then it was time to hang the curtain rod. We measured and made sure the quilt would be centered and level over the table.

 

You should read and follow the directions that come with your curtain rod as it may differ from this. We had to drill small holes for the anchors to go in the wall. We determined where to put the holes when we measured the quilt and rod.

 

These anchors go in the holes we drilled.

 

The screw gets put in the anchor, in the wall, through theses white plastic pieces. They will hold the wood rod brackets.

 

The brackets fit over the white plastic pieces and are held firmly on the wall. 

 

The curtain rod rests on the brackets. I like this kind of curtain rob because it is easy to take the rod down and change out the wall hanging. 

 

My mom's quilt is a nice piece to display, it just needed gentle treatment. Thanks for reading along, now go make something fun for yourself.

 

 ***Year End Update- I had been wanting to hang this for a while so I am happy it got done. It is nice on that wall.