Vintage Sampler, Embroidery and Doilies

This is a vintage looking sampler that I stitched recently using mostly Nancy Turner's Victorian Motto Sampler Shoppe threads.  I have been in her Primitive Limited Edition Floss club for a while now and am thoroughly enjoying it!  The chart for the sampler is from an old Just Cross Stitch publication and I had been meaning to stitch it up ever since I first saw it. 

Here's a little embroidery from a vintage pattern made with a variety of threads.  I do like to use many different kinds of threads for embroideries, I think it makes them more interesting to look at and more fun to do.  The vintage doilies that you see surrounding these stitched pieces are ones that I found in a thrift store last summer for the incredible price of three for a dollar!  There was a very large tub of them so I ended up buying about 30 or 40 of them, lucky me!

This is me and my dear little grandson, Calvin, hasn't he grown?

Thanks for visiting, I hope you will come back next time!

Embroidered House and Flowers

Here's my latest embroidery with a house and flowery yard.  The trees make it look like springtime which is the wrong season, but I did start it during spring which wasn't that long ago for us.  It just took me a while to do.

When I post the pattern below, you will see that I made some changes as I usually do.  I decided to leave out the hammock and the person in it because I just can't do people in embroidery.  But, I didn't think it would be a problem, I would just add some more flowers.

I put in more flowers on the tree on the right because I scorched the fabric when pressing the pattern on so those spots needed to be covered up.  I used the nice fluffy Caron Watercolours for the blossoms on the two trees.  And as always, I used many different brands and types of thread on this embroidery.

I guess I got a little carried away when I put some ground cover vines down here.  I was kind of thinking of vinca vines with their little purple flowers.

Here's the pattern, it's a vintage one, so it's perfectly ok to use it since it's in the public domain.  I hope someone might enjoy embroidering it, if you do I would love to see it.

 This is our new, adorable grandson, Calvin Patrick, he came into our lives about six weeks ago and has stolen our hearts!

Thank you for visiting!

Flower Basket Purse

Here's another project that makes use of an embroidery made from a vintage pattern.  It's also one of my very favorite subjects for embroidery, a basket full of flowers.  I just love them!  It was a very simple pattern, mostly lazy daisy and button hole stitches were used.

I had the pink fabric in my sewing room closet and decided to use it instead of my usual unbleached or tea-dyed muslin.  I was at Hobby Lobby looking for some trim to go with it, when that flowered fabric caught my eye from across the room and I knew it would go perfectly with the embroidered design.

The dark pink and blue threads are Hobby Lobby's Artiste, the lavender flowers were made with Sulky Blendable and the white daisies used DMC.  I wanted a more textured heavy fiber for the basket so I stitched it with Caron Watercolours in Antique Bronze.  I then added the leaves using a nice green Threadworx pearl cotton size 12.

This is the pattern, as I mentioned before, quite simple, but a joy to stitch!  I found it on Flickr's Hooplove Vintage Transfers, a place that I love to browse often!  Thanks for visiting once again!

Rose Arbor Embroidery

This is my latest embroidery, I hope you enjoy seeing it.  This one only took me about three weeks to finish since it's not a super large piece.  I got this vintage pattern on Pinterest which can be a wonderful place to find both patterns and vintage embroideries for lots of inspiration.

Here's a copy if you would like to stitch one up yourself.

As always, I used a variety of thread brands from my ever growing collection.  These flowers were made with Cosmos Seasons, Gentle Art, Needle Necessities and Sulky Blendables. 

The yellow hollyhocks and the lavendar lazy daisy flowers were both made with Sulky Blendable threads.  This was the first time I had used very much of this thread and it was very enjoyable to use.

I stitched these roses in a woven spider web stitch which is easy to do but just very time consuming.  This thread is called "Gypsy", one of the Artiste collection that was sold by Hobby Lobby but is now unfortunately discontinued.  I love the variety of pink colors all in one skein of thread.  The leaves and grass were done with a Cosmos Season green that I find myself using again and again.

Thanks for taking time to look at my embroidery again, I appreciate your visit!

House Embroidery

I just finished this embroidery, it's been a while since I've done one of these, so I really enjoyed it.  As usual, I used a vintage pattern.

I made a few small changes, but mostly stuck to the way it was.  I used a lot of different brands of threads from my very enormous stash.  

I like the multi-colored thread that the roof and door are made of, unfortunately, I have already forgotten what brand it was.

A closer view.

I put a little trellis on the corner of the house using white pearl cotton.
I'm going to give this little embroidery picture to a lady who is a dialysis patient at the place where my hubby is also a patient.  I always bring a project to work on while I wait there and she was always admiring it, so I hope she will enjoy it.  I hope you got a little bit of enjoyment from looking at it, too, and thank you for visiting!

New Embroidery

This was a very enjoyable embroidery to do, it was done from a pattern provided by Cheryl {Chez60} on Flickr.  She has a wonderful collection of vintage landscape embroidery patterns and I'm very grateful she has decided to share them with us.  Here is a copy of the pattern:

I used several different types of threads.  I'm very fortunate to have a large collection of them to choose from.

On the roof I used Valdani Twisted Tweed Pearl Cotton, I thought it provided an interesting texture.  For the chimney I used a Cosmos Seasons variegated floss, I have used this one many times when doing bricks.

I used Caron Watercolors in several places in this embroidery.  I especially like it for French knots since each of its three strands even when separated are quite thick and fill up an area fairly fast.  

These hollyhocks were made with Watercolors Cherry Cordial.

In the background a chain stitched farmer's field and French knot teal colored bushes.  

I can't say I'm totally happy with the entire embroidery.  For example, after stitching the rain barrel next to the chimney, we were driving somewhere and I saw a real wooden barrel and it was a weathered gray, not brown like mine.  And I'm not really crazy about those teal bushes but have you ever tried ripping out a large area of French knots?  Let me tell you, it's not something I enjoy.

But I try to learn from each project and for the most part, it's quite fun!

Thank you so much for stopping in and taking a look at my embroidery!

Cottage Garden Embroidery

I made this embroidery using another wonderful vintage pattern provided by Flickr contributor Chez60, the same lady who provided the Crinoline Lady pattern in my previous post.  She has shared so many beautiful old designs that I just can't wait to use!  

This pattern originally had a crinoline lady, too, but since I had just done one of those I decided to make some changes.  Here's the original one:

I just left her out, added some more rocks and flowers and was reasonably happy with the result.

A little closer.  

I used a variety of threads including Valdani, DMC Color Variations, Gentle Art Sampler Threads and Cosmos Seasons.  All of these threads which are probably used more for cross stitch than anything else are wonderful to use for this kind of embroidery.

One more close up:

Those odd looking things in the lower right corner are supposed to be bricks.  I had tried several different ways of doing them including plain satin stitch and nothing seemed to look right.  So after several rip outs I settled on the way you see them here.  I still wasn't perfectly happy with them but decided enough was enough and this is how they would stay.

I hope you enjoyed seeing another embroidery, thanks for visiting!

Some Embroideries and a Small Sampler

I've been finding some really nice vintage transfers on Ebay and Etsy and have been enjoying turning them into embroideries like this one.  I used traditional DMC vareigated colors on this embroidery and the next one, trying to keep with a vintage look.

But for the next one I decided to use a more modern color scheme and I used newer brands of threads;  Cosmos Seasons and DMC Color Variations.

Even though I love the vintage look, I do love the colors on this embroidery, too.  

I got what was supposed to be a kit for a stamped cross stitch sampler, but it looked like it was going to stamp onto the fabric in a wonky way.  So I decided to do it in a counted way, which was kind of a challenge because the chart that was included was meant just as a guide to the colors and was a bit wonky itself.  I also changed most of the colors to vareigated  DMC ones, I felt that they made it look more interesting and it was definitely more fun to stitch.

I will leave you with a picture of three of the kitties, Pepper, Tigger and Sarah relaxing on the couch.  Thank you so much for visiting!

Antique Embroidery and Cross Stitch

This antique embroidery was sent to me by a lovely lady named Nancy who you may know from her former blog "Lovely in Chocolate."  She doesn't have her blog anymore but we are Facebook friends and one day she just announced that she had found a nice antique embroidery and was going to send it to me!  I was flabbergasted but couldn't say no since I love old embroideries.  

I carefully attached it to some fabric that I think goes well with it and made it into a wall hanging.

There are lots of pretty details to look at, such as the bunny at the base of the tree and the little bluebirds in a nest up in a branch of the tree.

I don't know who stitched it or when it was done but I love it!

Just beautiful!  Thank you, Nancy!

I stitched this from an old stamped cross stitch kit that I found on Ebay.  I had seen a finished one on Pinterest and loved it so much that I knew I had to try and find one to make.  I love the colors and the vintage look of it.  I have not yet made it into a hanging, but it's sitting on the fabric that I will be using, I think it will look nice with it.

It may seem strange to you, that someone would want to stitch an old thing like this, with its unruly X's and a lack of precision compared to a counted cross stitch piece.  I would not have liked this either, years ago, but for some reason, I just love things like this now.  I hope you have enjoyed looking at these and I'm so glad you came to my blog for another visit!

Katrina's Cottage and An Embroidery

This is Katrina's Cottage by Vintage Designs and the first good sized cross stitch project I've done in a while.  It's also the first time I've used an aida fabric in years but it's a nice soft one and very pleasant to stitch on.  I used the called for DMC threads and it was a nice relaxing stitch!   If anyone would enjoy having the chart for this design, I will be happy to give it away.  Just let me know in a comment and if there is more than one person that would like it, I will do a drawing. I will even send a piece of the aida, too, since I have some extra.  It is a nice brown flecked natural color that I think goes well with the design.  Let's say that you have until noon next Monday, Sept. 2 to let me know.

I know, this embroidery is completely off season, but I finished it in the middle of the summer and didn't get around to posting it until now, almost fall.  But I thought you might like to see it anyway.  I adapted it a little from the Spring part of a four seasons set of designs that I got from The Pattern Bee.  They have the most wonderful selection of embroidery patterns there!

I love this pink variegated thread, it reminds me of cotton candy!

Some colorful flowers in a variety of stitches.

That's it for this time, I'm glad you took the time to see what I've been up to, thanks for visiting!