Unique Embellishments to Hang Your Quilt

You know, how you, when you finish a quilt and you've either put the binding on, or you're thinking about putting the binding on and you wonder, you know, is this gonna hang on the wall? And if it is, how am I gonna hang it? Do I need to put a sleeve on it? What am I going to do? Well, I don't like sleeves as much as I, pretty much, don't like binding, so I'm always looking for some cheer way to get out of doing either of those things. And I've discovered that there is just a bevy of wonderful things that you can stitch onto the top of your quilt, especially if it's an embellished quilt, to hang it from. This quilt that's right here in front of me. This is what I'm gonna be hanging it from. The nails will set right here and it'll hang from these little finials and what this is, is a very heavy iron piece of a hinge from a door. And I think it was from probably the art deco period because of the decoration on it. Whenever I decide I'm gonna use something funky like this, as the hanging apparatus for an art quilt, I also wanna know how I'm going to attach it. And generally speaking, I'll use some fabric glue to hold it in place temporarily and then some sort of stitch. And so I'm always trying to figure out how it's going to be stitched in place. So, I decided that this is the stitching I'm gonna use and I'll finish it up over here. But I wanted to make sure that whatever I did, it didn't mess with that wonderful patterning that's on the piece. So always keep that in mind. Also, keep in mind how it's going to hang and what it's gonna hang from once you're you've got it attached to your quilt. And so I like this indentation here. I know a nail can sit on either side of that indentation and it's gonna work really nicely. Now this piece, because it's, kind of, a ethereal fragile sort of piece, it's made out of paper towels that have been colored, I decided to make a metal structure to hang it from. And this is very malleable and it's a piece of 16 gauge copper wire that was been bent and then lightly hammered. And then I wrapped it with some pink wire that is a 20 gauge and then hammered it very lightly again. It has some swirls on each end and those swirls can be used to be from what it hangs by, depending on where they're put. So I could put it on the edge here and hang through those swirls or those swirls could be part of and on the quilt, rather than hanging off the quilt. So it could be on there like so and then everything that it's gonna hang from is gonna be whatever's holding up there or hanging up there. And that's probably what I'm going to do. I'll probably sew it on about right here and then I can just use nails here and here probably to hold it in place on the wall when it's ready to hang. And I'll probably come in and sew it with a pale goldy colored thread so that it matches the brass color of my main metal. And I'll just tack it in place with some slip stitches wherever it hits the quilt itself. It doesn't have to be stitched down in a mega tight way, just enough to hold it in place. And I think that's a really cool hanging apparatus. What's nice about this type of a thing is that it can be changed. The size can be changed. It can be made bigger or smaller to fit something. Or if you don't like the way it looks you can pull it out and cut it off or whatever. So they're, kind of, cool. Now, I tend to play with old bits of stuff, and I believe that this hanging apparatus was part of an old drawer pull. I put some cord through there, some silk cord through there and tied a knot through the holes where I think that the handle was and this was against the, probably against the drawer. There were some holes here in the corner that made it really easy to stitch on. And then this is the handle and this is what it will hang from. And I absolutely love that as a hanging apparatus, I think it's very cool. And I think I'm gonna look for more and more of these because I think you could also put several across the top and hang it from several of those and that would look really nice too. So these next two pieces don't have their hanging apparatus on them yet. And I have a couple of things that I can play with and think about. When I was designing this piece, I was pretty sure that I was going to use this as the hanging apparatus. And I'm pretty sure I still will but there are other options but I really liked the way that looks. And I believe this is an old part of a screen door or something. I'm not quite sure, but it's really heavy iron. And I didn't wanna stitch it on until I had all the rest of my stitching done on this piece. And then I'll glue it in place, probably about right there. All the flat areas that hit the surface will get glue on them and then I'll go on and do some decorative stitching to hold it in place. But it's just a really cool piece of old fretwork. I also found this wonderful little propeller and I, kind of, like that color with this too. I think it looks, kind of, nice and it isn't as competitive as this one, this one competes a bit with this other metal. If I were to use this, before I glued it on, I would probably wrap some sort of string of some sort around it or fiber around it that I could make a loop to hang it from that loop. The other option would be to put an actual hole in here where this hole is going to be and use a grommet setter or something to put a grommet in there and I could hang it right from there. When I go to stitch this on, I would probably do some wrapping on each end because I've got wrapping throughout here and I can mimic that wrapping. I could even put an X on each end or something like that but I think that looks pretty cool too. I could also use these drawer pulls. So these are three very different drawer pulls but these two have a similar size and they could go on the ends and this one could go here and those would set like this across the top. These are too short to actually hang the things from but I could put a string or something and have that string come up and hang from there. What's really nice is that these all have screws. So I could actually actually force a hole through the surface of the quilt, push this hole through there and then screw it in the back and have a really nice time fit with that door drawer pull. So there's another option for this quilt. And then finally, I've got this long linear piece and I might want something on the top and bottom, I'm not sure. But if I only want something on the top, I've got a few options. I like the idea of hanging this right from this portion right here, and maybe loops so it hangs low from there. And then this hangs, you know, from a nail there and maybe a nail down here, I think that looks pretty cool. I also like the propeller with it. I think the propeller's really nice. The best thing about it is that the propeller hangs out from the edges and then two nails one on each side could be popped in there and it could rest on those nails. But mostly I was thinking about putting something on the top and the bottom, because it's so long and it's curving a bit, it's curving this way a little bit. And I feel like having a little bit of weight down there, would actually serve it well. So I have this as some sort of a sanding tool rasp of some sort, and this is an old, I'm not sure what but it has lines all around it like a screw. So who knows what it is but they're very similar to each other. One's rectangular, one's round or triangular, one's round. But I could put this here or I could wrap this around there or I could make this shorter and put this right here at the top, which I'm thinking is a really good idea. Shorten that top part there, put that there and then this one put across the bottom and just do some whip stitching on both of them. And I think that's probably what I'm going to do because I really like it the way that looks. And I like that this is gonna give that bottom some weight. And I think it's just enough to add some interest. It allows me, if I want to, on some of these plainer areas, to put little bits of metal or some swirls or something like that which I might very well do. But I just like the idea that I've got something funky to hang it by instead of that old fashioned sleeve or little loops sewn to the back or whatever. So look about round your studio and see some, if you see some fun things that you think you might be able to hang your next quilt by, or when you're in a secondhand store or a goodwill, check things out and see if you can find something that you might like to use as a hanging apparatus. I think it adds a lot of whimsy and something cool to the surface of your quilt.