Vintage Thursday

Its always a little bit of challenge to figure out what to Vintage thing to write about.  Today I have chosen my quilt ladders.

Because the ladders are about 6' tall, its difficult to get it all in the picture.  This  ladder has an "A" frame shape to it.  I found it in a wonderful antique store in Washington, IL, just a half a block away from the Quilt Stop.  A van load of quilters had headed to Washington, I believe for someone's birthday, and spent the day shopping.  After lunch we strolled over to view all the goodies in the antique store and I found the ugliest ladder.  It looked very gray because the wood was old and weathered.  Some the ladder parts still had hardware on them so we knew it had been an extension ladder, plus it had quite a bit of silver roof paint on it.  I just fell in love with the one section and could imagine it in my country style home holding quilts.

 

The secret to turning an ugly ladder into a beauty is using varnish or polyurethane.  We did some light sanding and then used three coats of polyurethane and it now looks like a piece of furniture.

WARNING:  you must seal wood before hanging quilts on it.  The wood acids will stain and damage your fabrics.  Have you ever seen a quilt that was stored in a cedar chest?  Usually yellow stains where the fabric touched the sides of the chest.  Please seal shelves, quilt racks, trunks and ladders that you might display or hang quilts on for protection from wood acid damage.

This ladder is about 6' by 36" at the bottom.  It has lots of room.

This ladder was one of two that we found when cleaning out my Grandma's.  They were going to be thrown out as they weren't safe to stand on.  My husband and I knew there was a possibility they would make good quilt ladders.  We took them home to our garage.  While I was gone to a retreat one weekend.  My husband dug them out of our garage.  Cut them down to manageable sizes and polyurethaned them.  We gave each one of my "quilty" friends one for Christmas that had helped us with Grandma's house or cleaning out the farm.  My friends were thrilled, as none of them had a ladder for displaying quilts.

 

That Christmas my husband also surprised me that he had saved one for me!

This one is much narrower and sits in our stairway on the landing.  Make sure your quilts are out of direct sunlight.  You don't want sun rot or fading of your gorgeous quilts.

Today I am linking up with Susann of the Colorado Lady Blog, My Quilt Infatuation, and

Live A Colorful Life.

Yours in quilting,
Terry