{"id":7357,"date":"2010-05-29T20:59:13","date_gmt":"2010-05-30T00:59:13","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.janicefergusonsews.com\/blog\/?p=7357"},"modified":"2013-01-17T02:07:02","modified_gmt":"2013-01-17T07:07:02","slug":"vintage-spoke-collar","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/www.janicefergusonsews.com\/blog\/2010\/05\/29\/vintage-spoke-collar\/","title":{"rendered":"Vintage Spoke Collar"},"content":{"rendered":"

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I\u00e2\u20ac\u2122ve always thought spoke collars were about as lovely as anything could be. The first time I laid eyes on one was in the\u00c2\u00a0 Smocking Arts Guild of America’s”newsletter.”\u00c2\u00a0 First published shortly after their organization in the late 70’s,\u00c2\u00a0 it was the only heirloom\/smocking publication to be had.<\/p>\n

In about 1983,\u00c2\u00a0 there was an ad for a smocking shop. It included the shop name, address, phone number and a picture of a spoke collar that Julia Golson had made. There was no information about a class or pattern, simply a photo of beautiful piece of needlework to draw the reader\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s attention.<\/p>\n

It took my breath away. I had never seen anything so exquisite,\u00c2\u00a0 and mind you, this was a grainy, non-digital black and white photo. Of course, I am easily impressed, and was especially\u00c2\u00a0so in the early\u00c2\u00a0days of my love affair with heirloom sewing.<\/p>\n

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I called the shop post haste to buy a pattern or kit or\u00c2\u00a0sign up for a class–no matter that it was a mere 11 hour drive\u00c2\u00a0from my home.\u00c2\u00a0\u00c2\u00a0\u00c2\u00a0A nearly breathless clerk\u00c2\u00a0blurted that\u00c2\u00a0they had not anticipated the flood of calls, oh my!\u00c2\u00a0Oh, my!\u00c2\u00a0\u00c2\u00a0\u00c2\u00a0There was no pattern,\u00c2\u00a0no kit, no class.\u00c2\u00a0 But she knew that\u00c2\u00a0Julia Golson had made it.<\/p>\n

Like a determined, covered wagon pioneer looking west to The Great Unknown, I vowed that I would find out how this was done.\u00c2\u00a0\u00c2\u00a0\u00c2\u00a0Helen Reddy had already made famous the song, “I Am Woman,” with its fist clenching chorus, “….if I have to, I can do anything.\u00c2\u00a0 I am strong.\u00c2\u00a0 I am invincable!”\u00c2\u00a0 You might say I was obsessed.<\/p>\n

As you may have guessed, the secrets of the spoke collar were revealed to me and I honored my vow.\u00c2\u00a0 My first collar was very nice, but not as lovely as this one, elevated to a higher level of beauty with the artistry of an unknown embroideress, long since gone to meet her Maker.<\/p>\n

I love the look of hand embroidery but have never been good at it. And I am always in a hurry. So when I realized that the corners of\u00c2\u00a0vintage\u00c2\u00a0tea napkins could provide the hand embroidery for me, I was all about it.<\/p>\n

This collar was featured in an article I wrote for Creative Needle<\/em> magazine some time ago. I posted the article\u00c2\u00a0 to this blog Feb. 17, 2010, under the title Grandbaby Projects from Tea Napkins<\/em>.\u00c2\u00a0 For that post, I used the photos from Creative Needle. At that time, this collar was deep in my daughter\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s hope chest, awaiting the well-planned birth of her daughter, now scheduled for late 2012. So when I asked about it recently, she was willing to loan it to me for a while.<\/p>\n

Sarah Howard Stone\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s Basic Yoke<\/em> pattern includes many collars, including the 8-spoke view that I used for the one\u00c2\u00a0pictured\u00c2\u00a0\u00c2\u00a0here.<\/p>\n

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The two center sections of the 8-spokes were combined to form one wider, center spoke in order to accommodate the width of the embroidery on the tea napkin. Two napkins were required for the 7 spokes, leaving one embroidered corner for another project. Leftover sections between the napkins\u00e2\u20ac\u2122 corners were pin stitched to the raw edge of the back spokes. The back is closed with an antique button<\/p>\n

Antique lace was pinstitched to the spokes.\u00c2\u00a0\u00c2\u00a0The edging was \u00c2\u00a0hand whipped just under the cutwork scalloped edges of the napkin.<\/p>\n

With two pretty\u00c2\u00a0serviettes and some heirloom lace, a spoke collar of almost any size can be made. And each would be as pretty as the one Julia Golson made for that ad.<\/p>\n

This post has been shared on Faded Charm Cottage’s White Wednesday.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

I\u00e2\u20ac\u2122ve always thought spoke collars were about as lovely as anything could be. The first time I laid eyes on one was in the\u00c2\u00a0 Smocking Arts Guild of America’s”newsletter.”\u00c2\u00a0 First published shortly after their organization in the late 70’s,\u00c2\u00a0 it … Continue reading →<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":4,"featured_media":7372,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[39,16,25,28,38],"tags":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.janicefergusonsews.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/7357"}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.janicefergusonsews.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.janicefergusonsews.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.janicefergusonsews.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/4"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.janicefergusonsews.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=7357"}],"version-history":[{"count":17,"href":"http:\/\/www.janicefergusonsews.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/7357\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":13033,"href":"http:\/\/www.janicefergusonsews.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/7357\/revisions\/13033"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.janicefergusonsews.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/7372"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.janicefergusonsews.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=7357"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.janicefergusonsews.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=7357"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.janicefergusonsews.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=7357"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}