What to Do with “Old Brown”

Grandma Nonny made the brown corduroy blazer for my daughter, Leslie, when she was in junior high school. “It’s just perfect, Mom,” Leslie told me, referring not only to the fit, but also to its versatility. The jacket was heavy enough for fair weather and could still fit under Leslie’s coat when she needed it for warmth.

The new blazer Nonny made for high school made Leslie’s old brown blazer second best. “Old Brown” hung on the back porch all through high school, and Leslie wore it to do chores. The next three years she only wore it in the summer when she was home from college. That last summer, she received her mission call to New Zealand.

Nonny was busy all summer sewing two new suits and yet another blazer. “The hardest part about getting ready to go on a mission is leaving ‘old friends’ behind,” Leslie said, indicating the old brown blazer, which lay folded in one of the shopping bags filled with old clothes she had just carried to the back porch. In October, Leslie left for the Missionary Training Center.

I couldn’t bring myself to donate “Old Brown” to Deseret Industries, so I put it in my mending basket until I could think of a way to save it. I soon decided to make a stuffed animal out of it—a horse, Leslie’s favorite animal. The lining became the mane and tail of the brown corduroy horse I gave to Leslie as her Christmas gift that year.

Pleased with the results, I began to think of ways to save other family keepsakes. I still had the last night-gown that my grandmother had made for me. At ninety-seven, she doesn’t sew any more, but she must have made hundreds of night-gowns in her lifetime.

I appliqued this treasure onto a quilt. I only wish that I had thought of making a stuffed horse out of the old blanket Leslie dragged around when she was two. It would have been fun to save, too.

With a little imagination, you can make many old “treasures” into useful objects that will not only preserve the items, but may even enhance them. Marla Jones, Deming, Washington

Photography by Shauna Mooney