Friday 20 June 2014

Vintage Flowers... In Progress!

Remember that set of vintage embroidery transfers I started stitching earlier this month? Well, they're coming along nicely!

I started with the rose, stitching the main outline of the flower in a dark pink and the shading lines in pale pink...


... then sewing the leaves in a dark green. This isn't the best photo in the world but I'm very pleased with the finished stitchy result!


At the moment I'm sewing the waterlily...


I stitched most of this during a recent trip to Birmingham, where I attended Blognix 2014 (I'll be blogging about the trip sometime soon!) I stitched on the train, which proved surprisingly difficult as just the slightest motion makes it tricky to accurately place your stitches, and in my hotel room in the evenings.


It was the perfect relaxing project for a couple of days break, without the internet to distract me from my sewing! (It is amaaaazing how much sewing you can get done when you can't check your email or Twitter).

By the end of my trip the waterlily looked like this:


I've stitched the outline in the same pale pink I used for the shading on the rose, and have chosen a bright-but-not-too-dark pink for the shading. The lily pad is being stitched in a bright green - I started this before finishing the pink simply because I ran out of pink while I was away!

Here's the waterlily and rose together so you can see how the colours compare:

 

Once I've finished the waterlily there's just one more pattern to stitch - which I have only just realised is actually a group of pansies! I have no idea why I didn't realise this sooner. 


I'm really looking forward to choosing the colours for the final design and getting stuck into stitching it... and to finishing the waterlily, of course! The process of stitching these is great fun and super relaxing but nothing quite beats that "woohoo! I finished it!" feeling.

10 comments:

Charlotte said...

really pretty!

Elsa said...

Beautiful! I find your blog, you do very beautiful things! Sorry my english...

Lilyshaw said...

Really lovely, would make beautiful gifts!

Rebeckah Austin said...

I love these :) I would have done the water Lilly in purple I think. Or a different pink, just to add variety. But it still looks great! How about a purple for the others?

Unknown said...

Those are simply beautiful - and so neatly stitched! I love the colours you've chosen so far, can't wait to see the pansies... Chrissie x

Lina said...

How beautiful are these embroideries. You gave life to old patterns :))
What a good thing is transfer, not long ago I was struggling to transfer a Japanese pattern with Heat Transfer Pencil, I had to draw some details with the washable marker too because the Heat transfer pencil didn't work very well...

Bugs and Fishes said...

Thanks for the comments everyone! It's been fun sharing this project as it progresses :)

Rebeckah - I did worry a bit about using pink for two of the flowers but I decided that when I think of waterlilies I think of pink ones & I wanted to stick with realistic colours for this set. I am definitely going to be using purples for the panies :)

Lina - I definitely need to try different transfer methods! I've usually just traced a pattern with an ordinary pencil before (or drawn the pattern on tissue paper when sewing onto felt).

Charlie said...

I know exactly what you mean, it's hard to hold still on a moving train.

softbuttercream said...

I love it ♥♥

Bugs and Fishes said...

Charlie - it really is! I'd only ever done knitting on train journeys before & that is much easier to manage :)