Skip to main content

Montee Love

Montees, aka rose montees or crystal montees, are one of my favorite elements to use for embellishing quilted projects. These are rhinestones in a pronged setting with two channels on the back that you can thread a needle through while sewing them to fabric. Traditionally they've been used in dress-making, but lately jewelery makers have been using them like beads.

Used sparingly as embellishments they can add a glitzy, gorgeous touch to a project. Here's a detail from a crazy quilt tote I did a few years ago:

For the best effect, I stick with 3 to 6mm montees. I think the larger sizes are distracting and look a little fake, while 2mm montees tend to have too-narrow channels on the backing, and can be difficult for me to sew. I also prefer vintage montees versus new, as the old ones are a bit sturdier and were made with better quality rhinestones.

Quality vintage montees are hard to find. For the silk crazy quilt project I hunted around until I found a seller on Etsy who deals in vintage montees, and purchased three lots from the 1950's from that shop:

I've never seen high-dome gray crystal montees (bottom right), so those were a nice find. The garnet montees (top) are especially pretty, and have crystals with an unusual shape that add extra sparkle:

Stay tuned to see what I do with them. :)

Labels:

Comments

nightsmusic said…
I love those things. I had a skirt that had been my aunt's that was black and covered in clear ones. Made of silk, it had two underskirts and a tulle one beneath those. It was probably the most fun piece of clothing I've ever worn. Unfortunately, the tulle fell apart and then one of the underskirts and it was just too much to deconstruct it and repair it. I saved a few of the montees, but they got lost in a move :(

And I remember that gecko! :)
January 25, 2020 at 9:47 AM
Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

Other Stashes

Along with clearing out the spare bedroom and tidying my office and our guest bedroom, I decided to reorganize some of my stashes. This is all the yarn I have on hand, sorted by color. It looks like a lot, but lately I've been using up a minimum of half a bin every month, so this is approximately a year's supply. All of my solid color cotton perle thread. I go through a lot of this every year, too. I need a container in which I can fit all of it together, but I haven't found the right one yet. I won't show you all of my fabric -- I'm still reorganizing this stash -- but I went through everything and donated two bins of fabric I won't need to the local quilter's guild.
Post a Comment
Read more

In Progress

I promised myself I would show you the good, bad and ugly of my cleaning this year. This is what it looks like when you dump thirty years' worth of stashed fabric on the floor -- and oy, what a pain in the butt to pick up again! This is what it looks like after it's been sorted, folded and placed in containers, which took me about a week. Now the hard part is to downsize my stash by at least half, I think (that's my goal, anyway.) I've already e-mailed the president of the local quilting guild, a local friend who is a quilter, and a public school art teacher I know to see if I can donate some of the excess to them. The rest will go to Goodwill. Already I've reduced my vintage textiles from two bins to one, and my scraps from three bins to one. It's probably the hardest clean-out I've done, which is why I saved it until last. I know I have too much fabric, more than I can use in my lifetime -- but at the same time, I love it. So I have to...
Post a Comment
Read more

Downsizing

This was my fabric stash once I sorted everything -- 22 full bins. I spent a day taking out and boxing up what I could part with, with the goal of trying to reduce it by half, so I'd have 11 bins. I was very strict with myself, and removed everything that for one reason or another I was sure I wouldn't be able to use. This is what I ended up with -- 12 bins of fabric that I'm keeping. It's not quite half, but close enough. Half of what I took out went to a local quilter friend, a school and Goodwill. These four tightly-packed bins will be going to the local quilting guild once I make arrangements with them for a drop-off place. I am relieved and a little sad and now determined to control my impulses to thrift more fabric. I don't want to do this again, so until I use up six bins, I can't for any reason bring any new fabric into the house.
Post a Comment
Read more