White Embroidery - Peacock

According to my blog I started this around the 9th July so it's taken about three months which isn't bad as there is a lot of stitching on it, all hand stitched. I've used a variety of stitches including - back stitch, running stitch, chain stitch, stem stitch, French knots, couching, fern stitch, satin stitch, blanket stitch. It's stitched on a light cream linen with two strands of white stranded cotton. The photos don't look great, I may try taking some more in different lighting conditions.

Normally I would draw my own pictures but I took a fancy to a page in a colouring book - Secret Garden by Johanna Basford

Wondering how I transferred the image?

I enlarged the image on the computer then printed the design on Sulky Sticky Fabri-Solvy [over more than one sheet] which you stick to your fabric then stitch on top of it. I did find that it started lifting at the edges so I put running stitches around the edge and that sorted that problem. Because it is sticky the needles got sticky and I had to regularly clean them.

Then the fabric was rinsed, washed and ironed.

I did notice while taking the photos there was one tiny spot of black left. grr

I'm joining in the party at Simply Neutrals Tuesday, if you want to see more work in neutrals take a look here

Vintage Chair Back Cover Cushion

This is a cushion I made up using what should have been a chair back cover. It is vintage linen which has the design ready traced on and it used to belong to my Grandma at one time. The original pattern was a magazine offer and it gives suggestions on colours and how to embroider it. I did embroider a cushion, also part of this set, see the photo at the bottom, although I did not use the selected colour scheme. I wanted to use a different method for the chair back cover and as I would never use them as chair back covers I thought a cushion would be nice. I have not done any hand embroidery on it. To start with I coloured the flowers and leaves in with Berol fabric pens, but the choice of colours was limited and I've lost the darker green, so the leaves were the done with the lighter green. I then went over parts of the design with free hand machine embroidery. There was a wavy traced line at the lower end for shaping the cover, I used a fancy decorative machine stitch on top of this. I thought the blue traced lines would wash out but they haven't, perhaps vintage ones don't?

below is the cushion I hand embroidered, it took years to do which is one reason why I wanted to do a quicker technique on the cover.

Doorways and Rolling Stamps 53-55

This is to take part in the Three Muses challenge which this week is 'Doorways'.

I photographed this wonderful doorway at Belsay Hall, Northumberland way back in 2003 and it was an entrance to a room full to bursting of linen.  The nurse wasn't there. Some more photos of the room and another doorway into it shown below.

More rolling stamps - the first & third are made from fun foam, the second from wallpaper