Crewel

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This was made from a kit, and for some reason they used extremely thin fabric, so you can see the floor right through it. It involved peculiar stitches, such as 'couching' in the tail, but I liked the overall effect enough to have it framed. It's sitting in my closet, amusing the spiders at the moment.

This 'evolved' rather than was planned back in 1975. I had crewel yarn left over from various kits. I also had red transfer pencils. I sketched dogs and horses on scraps of paper, then arranged them on the fabric and ironed them on. The bunny rabbit, fence fragment, tree, grass, patch of daisies, and bush were stitched on freehand. The tree was originally smaller and had no pink flowers, but a few years later I thought the tree looked too 'lollipop' neat and added them. Oh, and the fox got away.

This was a kit. I believe it was adapted from a Charles Wysocki painting. Lots and lots of fiddly bits. My favorite was the 'bearskin' which is made with clipped turkey stitches so it really is fuzzy. The dog in the bottom right was originally a cat, but I didn't think any cat was stupid enough to sit in the middle of a street where it could get run over by a horse and wagon and it was far too large for a normal housecat so I made it into a dog. This was done in 1985.

This was made about the same time as the trading post. Mom made nearly all of it, and then put it aside for a while. I later finished it. The needle had been left in the fabric too long and left a rust mark, so I created a kite to cover it up. The cushions in the surrey are clipped turkey stitches and fuzzy, and the fringe is fringed.

This started out as a sketch of my cat, Ginger, curled up in the lid of my portable typewriter. I later traced it using red transfer pencil and used crewel yarn to give an 'impression' of her markings and made it into a pillow.

My great-aunt Emily once sent me a notecard with a cute colored drawing on it. I liked it, so I redrew it, with minor alterations, and transfer pencilled the design to fabric (this reversed it- the original card is taped to the back of the picture). Some of it is done in embroidery floss, where I didn't have crewel yarn of the color I wanted. The trees and sheep are mainly French knots.

Well, I finally got 'round to taking the picture down and turning it around to show the original card. The scotch tape  is so yellowed it gives you an idea how long it's been on. The picture is reversed from the crewel because I thought it would look just as well in either direction and it was easiest to lay tracing paper on top and simply outline the major areas in red transfer pencil, rather than making a tracing in regular pencil, turning the tracing paper over, then retracing it in transfer pencil (and having to cover the paper with another paper when ironing to prevent the iron from being dirtied.)  I did make all sorts of changes, but kept the basic layout and design.

The kittens aren't crewel- but embroidery is close enough- They were originally a pair of pre-printed lengths of fabric that I'd had for so long I'm not sure who gave them to me... they sat for many years in the bottom of an ugly yellow plastic sewing 'basket' which I had to get for Home Ec. class in school (the teacher did show me a better way to put in a zipper than the sewing patterns describe but except for that, it was pretty much of a waste of time.) Mom and Dad and I went one year to Europe, not long after his airline, National, finally got the rights to fly there, and gave employees very good discounts on fares. We got Eurail tickets, and rode the trains the whole time. I was glad I'd brought along my embroidery thread and these two pieces of cloth because there was absolutely nothing to do on the trains once it got too dark to see outside.

I had no instructions, and didn't really know what I was doing, but I didn't care, I had fun, particularly using 'variegated' thread to achieve pretty shading on the flowers & the siamese kitten. (I've no idea what colors it was originally intended to be.) After I got home, eventually mom wanted to know what I was going to do with them. I thought about it and decided pillowcases would be best. Mom helped me by cutting down the one piece of fabric without telling me- cutting it right to the edge of the embroidery so that sewing it into a pillowslip meant sewing over the embroidery. As you can see here... I stopped her from trimming the second one Sigh... so they don't match in size. Moral of the story--hide the scissors from helpful folks.

Sometime back in the 'Americana' phase that started a year or so before the US Bicentennial, candlewicking was revived. The thread is the same type originally used for candlewicks, and very few, simple stitches are used (mainly outline and Colonial knots). Generally it's done in natural colored thread but colored versions like this one are also made.

Yet another of the thrift store kits that someone decided not to do about 20 years after buying it, bargains. All the pieces were there, but there was never any provision for lining, and the directions for actually making it into a purse were missing. I found a print with chickadees and pine branches among my fabric collection and made that the lining, and then sat down and logically puzzled out how to assemble it so it would look like the photo on the package. I love it when a plan comes together.