Over the years I have been the grateful recipient of many family treasures and antiques. Most of them easily find an honored spot in our home; the beautiful antique silver tea service is on the sideboard in the dining room, a wonderful oriental rug decorates the hall, and a child’s bentwood rocker from Germany adds a focal point to our study.

Some items are more problematic, and I worry about how to preserve, honor and display them. Don’t we all, for example, have boxes and boxes of old photographs in the attic? And then there’s my grandmother’s handmade lace dress that she wore to her graduation from Bryn Mawr in the early 1900s.

While I’m still figuring out the best way to preserve those family treasures, I recently addressed a different heirloom that needed attention — a spectacular crazy quilt made by my great-grandmother in the late 1800s.

 Made from silks, velvets and brocades with silk thread to create a different, intricate stitch around each piece, the quilt was already flaking into pieces when I received it over a decade ago. It made me sad to have such a spectacular piece of art hidden in a closet.

 Last fall I took out the quilt, as I have done periodically over the years, but this time I decided to rescue those few portions of the quilt that still held together.

 It was very difficult to make the first cut with my scissors and to this day I wonder if it was the proper thing to do. Able to find only small areas that were intact, I salvaged about half a dozen sections, each about 6 x 9 inches in size, and went to work making decorative pillows with the quilt remnants as the centerpiece. I chose velvets, silks and brocades of various rich tones to frame the quilt panels. Some pillows I trimmed with silk fringe or rich roping; to other pillows I added tassels and beads, and I stuffed each with premium goose down. The project didn’t require any advanced sewing technique — if you can sew a square panel, you can make these pillows; it’s not tricky.

 Over Christmas I gave most pillows away to family members who I hoped would appreciate the wonderful heirloom now repackaged, bringing it out of storage and back into our lives. 

 Editor’s note: The “Homemade” column belongs to our readers. Please submit your idea for any home, gardening, or fashion project that you’ve done at home. Send ideas to astevens@cnc.com and please write “homemade” in the message window.