Old embroidery, sampler update and flowers

Some time ago I mentioned a detergent test I made, and now you can see what the result was. I had this embroidered cushion cover from the beginning of last century, loved and used to shreds really, and still kept safe. I photocopied the embroidery to keep the lovely pattern safe. As you can see on the right side of this picture, the fabric was stained and yellow. I thought it can't get worse if I give it a try with some Vanish Oxy. Two hours soaking, a careful wash by hand, a thorough rinse and a flat dry, and you can see the difference.

Here it is after a light ironing. I can't imagine a better future to any of my handicrafts. Instead of being folded away from light and sight, they would be used, worn and washed. This cushion cover has been used for a long time after the first holes appeared, until it practically fell apart and could not cover a cushion any longer. I can imagine some female ancestor insisting on keeping it, maybe her own work or a gift from someone special. Maybe her husband used the cushion when taking a nap, the linen feels so cool and lovely. This piece is definitely beyond repair and must have been kept for sentimental reasons.

The colours have faded over the years

but on the reverse you can see how lovely it must have been when it was new.

I'm trying to find a spot with the fabric intact, large enough to use in the Splendid Sampler quilt instead of the embroidery suggested. I'm honoring the original creator by doing so, and I hope to copy the pattern some day for a new cushion cover.

Here are the new blocks I have finished since my last update. Mr Bunny, almost like Peter Rabbit. Not trimmed to size yet, I notice.

This one was fun and easier than it looks.

Appliqué

and paper piecing, with the tiniest pieces I have ever tried.

Dresden plate with wonky appliqued parts.

Paper-pieced heart

And yesterday's block, fast and easy piecing for a change.

A group photo of all my blocks, missing block 20 but including two bonus blocks. 69 more blocks to sew!

We have finally had some warm days again and the flowers in the garden are doing well.

The apple trees were in bloom a week or two earlier than usual, but luckily the weather remained warm and the bees were busy. The tree in the back was already full of blossoms when the on in the front was just beginning. This is my apple sauce tree, the bigger one is just for eating apples.

Old embroideries and UFOs

This weekend has been amazingly warm, and even with some snow still in the garden, Mr. K. has started working there. He went through his shirts to find a suitable one, and gave me these four he no longer will use because the collars are worn out, the sleeves are too short or the shirt is just simply too uncomfortable (the one on the left). I spent a lovely time in the sun on the verandah cutting up the shirts and folding the pieces to add in my stash.

I have sometimes wondered if UFOs are hereditary. I mean the eagerness to start something and then not being able to finish the project? At least in my family it seems to be the case, as I have several UFOs from my grandmother's generation, some of which I have been able to finish. Recently my mother was sorting her stash and she let me have some of her UFO collection. Many of these look like test bits, never meant to be finished projects. I think I could use this one to practice new stitches:

This is obviously a sampler, with different patterns at both ends of the row:

This small placemat looks like something I could try to finish, if I manage to find some matching thread.

This one looks like mother didn't want to do the difficult part at the ends.

One reason for the many UFOs must be that we are also keepers, we don't like to throw things away. This old tablecloth is a perfect example for that. It has been used a lot, so the embroidery has started to fray, and the hemstitch is torn at many places. Still it has been washed and put in storage, and I saved it once again. Maybe I can use some of the good parts of the embroidery, or maybe my daughter will do so.

 
Here is a pattern I would like to copy for future use. The stitches are quite simple, and I can see in my mind a detail of a bag or something like that. I could make the daisies smaller, or bigger.

VTT 17 - Vintage swap and marking cotton

I almost can't remember when I participated in Vintage Thingie Thursday the last time. I have been visiting VTT blogs but just didn't have the time or the photos for a blog post of my own. Now I want to show you something nice I have received from a VTT friend. Some time ago Collette admired my old stitching patterns, and I sent her some translated copies of them. This week I had all this in my mail:

Have a closer look at the little napkins first:

Here is the folder for the iron-on transfers:

and the pattern sheet looks like this:

I love the clover pattern and will use it some day for a table runner or cushion cover. Thank you, Collette! Isn't it great that you can find new friends across the world just because you follow the same blog? Thank you Suzanne for hosting VTT!

Another new friend, Miri, is showing quilt patterns today on her VTT post, and marking cotton is mentioned in her book. I just happen to have a collection, nicely stored in a candle box by my mother. You can see in the photo (click to enlarge) it is thick cotton thread, not perlé like perlé thread but the same thickness, and can't be separated like embroidery floss:

 

I think this thread was hardly used for anything else but marking the monograms on towels, table cloths and bed linen.  Maybe whitework, I remember having an UFO . That is where my white thread is!

 

This was all from me this week, there is a list of links to other VTT posts on Coloradolady's blog.

Vintage UFO finished

This is how close to summer we are today. Birch leaves are "mouse's ears", the size of my pinkie fingernail.

The strangest thing happened. I finished my summer embroidery before the summer even came here. This was an old UFO from my dear Great Auntie Saima, passed down to me by my mother several years ago. It was half done, and some blue perlé thread was wrapped in it. I don't remember whether mother gave me the missing floss from her own stash, maybe I bought the variegated yellow, red and blue when I got the bag with Saima's handicraft things. Anyway, the bar codes show that the floss is newer than the original kit.

Earlier this spring I took the tablecloth kit from the bag and started working on it in the evenings, when I felt like it. Here is where I started:

The stitching was fast and easy, all six strands of the floss were used for the flowers and leaves.

I needed to buy some orange floss for the dots and green for the border pattern.

       

I thought I will sign this for both of us. My mother was almost certain that the kit is from 1920's or 1930's, because she knows her aunt Saima did not embroider things like this in the 1940's or later. So I wrote: SAIMA started around the 1930's, Ulla stitched the other half in 2010.

    

And here is our summer tablecloth, washed (the blue pattern print did not yet come out) and ironed:

All I need now is the summer, a garden table, a patio for it, and sunshine. The tablecloth is waiting! I'm waiting for summer.

Just knitting and stitching

Finishing the big string quilt for the spring exhibition of my sewing class took so much energy that I have not started a new quilt yet. There are too many ideas, I think I'll just wait and see what tempts me next. Meanwhile I have been knitting  more of these:

The two chemo caps on the right are knitted with the same pattern, a star, started at the top, so it is easy to adjust the size while you go. On the left is yet another cap in organic cotton with the smock pattern.

I have also worked a little on the vintage embroidery and bought the missing floss for it. I also noticed that the floss I'm working with now can't be the original, as there are bar codes on them!

In the centre the flowers are a little bigger. The three little dots will be stitched with the orange floss I just bought.

This is a group of flowers in the corner:

The new variagated floss I'm using for the flowers in blue, red and yellow is a little brighter than the original one, but the green is almost the same. Tomorrow I will show this to my mother and ask her how the edge should be finished. I have seen tablecloths like this with lace, but also with a folded edge with mitred corners on the reverse and a row of hemstitch like here:

I have not much fabric outside the drawn pattern, so lace may be an option.

The spring is really taking time to arrive: last night it snowed again and the snow lasted on the ground almost until noon. My daffodils are still in good condition after four weeks:

(I took the picture a week ago, but they looked the same today. With the snow and all.)

Attached Strings and ancient UFO's

Finally my string block quilt is finished! Everything except the batting is from my stash, and please note that I was only digging in the blue box. I used very thick batting so machine quilting was out of the question. I decided to tie this one, and this is how it looks on the flannel backing:

The knots are tied with two shades of blue perlé thread (546 double surgeon's knots, to be precise).

My quilt ended up little oversized, but people are so tall nowadays so it may be a good thing.

 

Making string blocks was fun, and I have seen such lovely projects on other participants' blogs that I think I need to start a smaller string block project in the near future. Stephanie just recently told that there are over 150 finished projects already, and the deadline is at the end of June. Plenty of time to make something nice and fun.

Spring is really on the way here: On April 1st I saw the first finches, not just  one but a group of 10 boys. They normally feed on insects, but because of the snow and cold (not very cold any more) they were looking for the sunflower seeds and peanuts we give our winter birds.

 

Today it has been raining almost all day so there is much less snow left. Under the trees you can already see the ground. The lack of frost and the amount of light make me think of summer, and I wanted to start a summer project. Among many tempting alternatives I picked an UFO of the previous generations. I have told about this treasure here, but when I look closer I can see that there is more than half of the work still to do. The style and colourfullness make me think of dear Great Auntie Saima rather than my Grandmother or my Mother. What do you think of this:

 

The blue circle is finished, with thick perlé thread. The flowers and leaves are sewn with 6 strands of variegated embroidery floss. I finished a set of leaves and two flowers in one group yesterday and managed to make them look like the older ones. Here is a closer look to the edge:

   

(Blogger wants to tilt my pictures today!)

(I'm using the organizer from Anne Marie for this project to keep all the floss in one place)

The table cloth has been bought as a kit with no instructions but with some stitches here and there started so you can figure out what stitches to use and what colours. I need to find solid orange for the little flowers on the edge and the groups of dots in the circle. Other threads are still there. When the embroidery is finished, I will invite you all to the garden for tea and cake! 

VTT 5 - Embroidered table cloths

This week I'm going to show you my table cloths over three generations. I have been joining Vintage Thingie Thursday,

the weekly show of used and loved treasures, 55 times now in almost 17 months. About 50 times I have shown something I have received from my family, a long line of keepers.

The first table cloth is from my Grandmother, with her monogram EK very skillfully embroidered on the linen damast cloth:

We used this on our Christmas dinner table, and now I need to wash and iron this beauty so it will be ready to use for the next big dinner. I would think this one comes from the time before the WWII.

The other table cloth will take us over two generations. It is one of the many unfinished projects my mother has given me in the hope that I will sew the missing parts and make the piece useful.

Mother had stitched the flowers in blue and white, thick perlé thread and embroidery floss. That was the fun part for her. She also finished the hemming, the mitred corners, and some of the lines dividing the middle area.

That is where I came in. I stitched some of the missing diagonal lines and many of the straight ones, and I got to sign this piece in 1992. It had been a project from the 1950's, I believe mother had ordered the kit from a women's magazine.

  

Maybe in 15 years I will start pushing my UFO's to my daughter, just to continue this tradition as well. She is a maker and a keeper already!

Have a happy VTT! Suzanne is hosting with a lovely  theme.