Embroidery bonanza

 

For my birthday this year, I received some beautiful vintage embroidery transfers from Mr T's mum. Having just started up properly with embroidery, I'm really exciting about practising some techniques, and finding some new ones to fill in the gaps in these lovely patterns. I've got four plain cotton pillow cases (I call them pillow cases but they're actually too big to be cushions and too small to be pillows) to decorate, and so I've chosen the following pattern:

 They are far too chintzy for Mr T's taste, but as usual I'm sure he'll suffer in silence. I'll try and include some dark red, and some navy, that should keep him happy.

So, in order to copy over the pattern, as I didnt want to damage the pattern anymore than necessary (some of the transfer is starting to peel away, leaving little black spots all over my desk.) I just laid the pattern under the top layer of cotton, and traced it over in my trusty wash away pen. And I ended up with this!

Those with good vision might spot the failure of a bird with a big cross through it on the right, I do want to add some birds/ bees around the flowers, but will try and find a better pattern elsewhere as the birds on this pattern look a little odd.

Having traced over the pattern very roughly I then filled in the detail freehand. I'm very happy with how it came out... but we'll just have to wait and see what kinds of stitches I might need. Let me know if you have any suggestions.

Deborah