Chatelaines

In the early 90’s I participated in quite a few craft fairs. I was always coming up with fun items to sell, but I never made enough money to quit my day job (dental hygiene 😁). One of these projects was a sewing chatelaine. It was meant to be worn around the neck when doing handwork, and was made up of a quilt block pin cushion with a measuring tape or ribbon connected to a folding scissors. I was pleasantly surprised to find a photo of some of the ones I made way back then.

Well, years later I made a very different type of chatelaine which I use often, and I brought it with me to a class I took while at the Birmingham Festival of Quilts. The ladies I sat with in the Dorset Button Brooch class (click here to read that post) we’re very interested in it (it’s around my neck, peeking out from behind Quiltina).

While chatting with them about it, I thought “this might make a good blog topic”. Then, while at the Victoria and Albert museum in London,

I walked through their jewelry exhibit and found ~ a chatelaine:

and a bit of history to go with it:

Fascinating! Here’s a photo of how they would have been worn.

That’s when I knew there was definitely going to be a blog post on this topic. Back in 2006 Wendy and I took a group of quilters on a cruise on the Danube River. The project we came up with for the travelers to work on while on the trip was a chatelaine made with men’s neckties as a base.

Prior to the trip everyone marked the tie placement on their background fabric. Then, while floating along the Danube, we’d meet up in the riverboat’s lounge and embellish the fabric with designs from our different ports of call, in a variety of techniques. The Danube River, and the Lorelei pincushion at the bottom left were hand appliquéd. The house in Nuremberg was painted. The Passau pipe organ, Melk grapes, and the St. Stephansdom tiled roof were all beaded. And lastly, the chain bridge in Budapest was inked in with fabric markers.

We all had fun collecting pins from the different cities we visited to add to the effect. Once home everyone was sent instructions on how to cover the neckties with their embellished chatelain covers. It was a fun project, and I use it quite often. I love the memories it brings back whenever I use it.

I recently came up with an idea for making my chatelaine even more useful. I added ruler lines to the back of one side so I can do a quick bit of measuring when needed.

A few years after that trip we led a tour to the quilt show in Sisters, Oregon. One of the projects we came up with for that trip was yo-yo buttons for scissors zingers. The one in the photo above isn’t made with a yo-yo, but it was the basis for a fun new project idea. Here are a few of the yo-yo versions.

Are you intrigued? Next week’s post will explain them in more detail, just in case you’d like to make your own.