This is a Mother’s Day present for my mother-in-law, Gail Gray. It’s made from 8 vintage Vera linen napkins — all different designs. In the 60’s and 70’s Vera Neumann (who was simply called Vera) designed beautiful scarves and kitchen linens, among other things. I always loved her logo with it’s distinctive signature and little…
Here are some more cute embroidery patterns from the 1948 Simplicity Needlework Catalog. I have seen other elephant day-of-the-week patterns and lots of anthropomorphic pots and pans, but I haven’t seen these before. The expressions on the spoons are pretty cute. I hope these are clear enough to allow you to copy the patterns. Happy…
My husband’s aunt, Margaret Elizabeth “Betty” Gray, died in June of last year at the age of 88. Her husband, Connor, was the older brother of Gordon’s father, Gordon, Sr. Betty and Connor built a waterfront home on Mercer Island in the 50’s and lived there until their deaths. Gordon’s parents and grandparents also built…
Only four more rows to go — that’s 22 more embroidered squares. I still haven’t figured out what to do for a border, but I’m sure something will come to me. It would be fun to embroider a vine or something on a dark border. Although I’m still enjoying the stitching, I need to search…
Tumbler was my second quilt. The top was started in the late 70’s, but I put it away before it was finished. It was made primarily from sewing scraps, and I remember that there were quite a few Laura Ashley prints. Even back then, before I started using vintage fabric (although now that I think…
We are so fortunate to have my nephew, Chris, as our family photographer. He takes all the photos at our get-togethers, but he also loves to take nature pictures. This weekend he took several photos of hummingbirds on his deck and I think they’re just beautiful. We were wondering whether these are rufous or anna’s…
My younger sister, Mary, completed these fabulous ink and watercolor pictures in the 1970’s and gave them to my sister, Sally, and me. I have all four of them now and I hope Sally doesn’t ever ask for hers back. Mary used the illustrations by Sir John Tenniel from the original 1865 Alice’s Adventures in…
My son Elliott’s favorite G.I. Joe character when he was a boy was Snake Eyes (and his pal, Storm Shadow). Both of these characters are ninjas and have the same hexagram tattoo on their arms (number 58 on the chart of 64 hexagrams in the I Ching). As a graphic designer, Elliott has used this…
This should be about half of the book now. I think there are a few in this group (together with some others) that would make good Day of the Week towels, but I always want to make everything into a quilt — or occasionally a pillow. These remind me of vintage embroidery transfers, although I…
Top Notch Paint Book Whitman Publishing, 1936 Uncredited Illustrator
My husband, Gordon, stitched this Monet painting in 1983 from a pattern by Pat Wilkie Keene. When we were first married, he taught himself to embroider because he wanted a monogram on the pockets of his dress shirts — he stitched a little “GHG” with a tiny satin stitch. He also cross-stitched Christmas stockings for…
Yesterday morning I was searching Flickr for a hummingbird embroidery pattern when I discovered Susan’s incredible embroidery of an Anna’s Hummingbird. Since 2002, Susan has been stitching a collection of birds that visit her garden — each one exquisite — based on John James Audubon’s Birds of America. I contacted Susan to request permission to…
If anyone stitches one of these little paint book animals, please let me know. I would love to see one completed. I am going to make quilt blocks, but I haven’t come up with a plan yet. I’d like to try them with one or two appliqued elements on each block. Animal Paint Book Whitman…
This little quilt was sewn for my daughter, Emily, when she left for college. At the time, she really liked pink and black. It’s made primarily with feedsack scraps (leftovers from the Kansas Dugout Quilt) and a few vintage dress scraps. I blanket stitched the scraps by hand onto 4″ pieces of muslin using black…
I was going to add lots more of these today, but it took longer than expected to scan and clean them up. The pages are so dark and many have stains and mildew on them. It’s my spring break starting today — I am looking forward to a week of enjoyable embroidery and quilting.