We’ve all seen stuff like it and cringed. Needlepoint With her unique combinations of images and
pillows with kittens frolicking against lime green colors, Paris-based Morrel succeeds in creating
backgrounds. Big-eyed deer strolling through gar- pieces that look both modern and chic. In doing this,
ishly colored forest scenes. she gives value back to the tapestries and at the
But French designer Frédérique Morrel grew up same time tells her own stories through the way
seeing the love and dedication that her grandmother she chooses to juxtapose images.
put into a single piece of needlework. It made her With naked women, Disney characters, and
sad, then, to see similar handmade items spread out bucolic rural scenes the most popular of tapestry
on tables at garage sales and flea markets, their price subjects, this indeed results in some interesting
tags marking them as nearly worthless. She knew combinations. It’s not unusual for Mickey Mouse
that no matter how ugly or laughable the items may to find himself on the same pillow as a buxom nude
seem now, someone had once put many hours into and a Swiss chalet.
making something that was, for them, an item to It’s reassuring to think that if 50 years from now
be cherished. our much-loved and laboriously made creations
Morrel, 50, decided to start giving vintage needle- wind up neglected in musty thrift store bins, some-work a second life by “recrafting” the pieces into one like Morrel might come along and remake them footstools, pillows, and “poofs” — large cushions that into something beautiful. can be used as chairs or coffee tables. Not wanting —Johanna Bailey any part of the tapestries to go to waste, Morrel also uses the edges and other parts that would normally >> Recrafted tapestries: frederiquemorrel.com be thrown away to make trays, lunchboxes, and notebooks by embedding the textiles in resin.
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