Years ago I was looking around a fabric shop on Duke of Gloucester Street in Annapolis, Maryland when two special fabrics met my eye. One was a wonderful needlepoint of books on a book shelf and the other was also a needlepoint of eastern woodlands Indians. Books have always been at the very core of my life. As an archaeologist I spent 25 years studying the eastern woodlands Indians and my grandmother was Iroquois making this fabric more then special to me.  Despite the fact that it would make my budget a bit tight for the rest of the month, I bought the fabrics and took them home with no idea of what I would do with them. 
            The first piece of fabric was 29” X 29” and when made into a pillow would fit perfectly into a brown leather wing chair I had by one of my bookcases. I bought a down pillow that was 28’ X 28’ for an insert. I also bought some heavy satin fabric in the prominent color of the needlepoint to back my pillow. Then I bought a piece of silk cording that had a ¾” band attached and I used it to edge the pillow. I pinned the cording (the band facing the edge of the fabric) to the needlepoint. I then carefully machine stitched (as close to the cording as possible) the cording to the needlepoint. I then placed the needlepoint and the satin together with the right side of the needlepoint facing the right side of the satin. I machine stitched around the fabrics just as close to the cording as I possible could leaving a 14” opening through which to insert the pillow when the pillow case was turned right side out. I tucked the ends of the cording into the cover and whip stitched the cover closed. I didn’t bother to put a zipper in the pillow cover because the pillow would have had to be dry cleaned.
            The second piece of fabric was much larger. It was 30” high and 48” horizontally. I had an old oak buffet that I had bought many years before at the Good Will. I had looked for something to hang over it but could find nothing that I really liked. I decided to have this piece of fabric framed. I chose a frame that would compliment the rustic scene in the needlepoint and did not use any mats nor did I allow the fabric to be pinned (pins rust over time). The results were wonderful and the resulting picture fit perfectly over the buffet.
            Have fun with texture and color and enjoy looking for that special fabric!