Vintage charm of yesterday created for today's use

A few posts back, I showed this picture of the white work I am beginning to do for my dining room table..
This is the vintage transfer that I decided to use. Well......

I finished! The center design at least. This shows the cutwork I love to do,

along with the different stitches....closed buttonhole stitch, french knots, satin stitch and so on.

I have always loved the old linens one finds at antique sales. The sheets and matching pillowcases done in white cutwork along with monograms, the sets of napkins(some 12 to a set) with either monograms or other floral done in white work. I have always wanted to bring that look back to today's tables and homes. That is my passion and desire. To have a line of linens for use in the kitchen, dining room, bedroom and bath, that is newly created and durable for today's use, but also have the charm of yesteryear. That is how I came up with my company name....Yesteryear Embroideries.

I now need to decide what I am going to stitch on the corners and the sections in between, plus I want to do some kind of cut work on the very edge of the whole cloth. So hopefully at a later date, I will be able to show you the complete finished cloth! For now....my attention must turn back to a cross stitch picture I am trying to finish for a friend. So my question to you all this time is..... if you were to decorate with linens.....which room would you chose to decorate? I always love hearing your comments and opinions, I can't wait to hear on this!

The Inspiration Of Blossoms

The Italian Jasmine is starting to show of is calico dress of cheery yellow blossoms.
I removed the Christmas poinsettia and holly out of the flower boxes. Because it is almost Valentine's day....my favorite holiday.... I thought these silk flowers with pink and white would be pretty for that day.

They perk up the house in the winter sun.

My mailbox is full of the new flower and vegetable seed catalogs. I can't wait to start ordering for the new season's planting, but I also love the books for the color they show in the flowers.


They are a great guide in deciding which color a flower should be and which hues of color goes best with another. I love vintage catalogs for this reason. As you can see, this is from 1894. The colors just call to me.

As well as the seed packets. These packets are from the 1920's and the seed company captured the prettiest colors for the flower.

When I see packets like these.....

I pull out my floss collection and start matching colors.

All I need then, is a wonderful piece of white cotton fabric, "my blank canvas"

and some vintage transfers or designs... and I can get lost in stitches all day! What about you? What color or color combination catches your eye the most? Do you decorate with silk flowers as well as real flowers? I would love to hear!

This Is Your Day

Imagine...you awake....the morning sun streaks across the room onto the door of a brand new day.
A new day just for you. No other day will be like today, not like yesterday, and not like tomorrow.

Today is a blank canvas waiting for you to chose on how you want it to be.

A new day to plant those creative seeds you've been wanting to try. The possibilities are everywhere.....eye candy calling out to your hands
to get creative and dare to dream
to put the pieces together and

to make your day one worth remembering!
Kathleen

An Appreciation For Red

Red has never been a favorite color of mine. I would have been perfectly happy if Santa had been wearing a "pink and white" suit instead of red.{:However, as the years have gone by, I have really started appreciating the value of the red member of the color wheel. I have noticed how it stands out and draws the eye to it....especially in flowers. Wildflowers....my favorites, have the Indian Blanket. Among the blues, whites and yellows in a field, the reds and oranges of the Indian Blanket, just make the field come alive.

One of my dear friends, Bell, who is in her 90's. has an antiques business,and does not like to have grass in her yard. Instead she has a packed dirt yard, but full of color with all of the flowers she grows there. You could say her yard is her flower bed. She has California Poppy among her beauties. It is one of the most prettiest, petally (if there is such a word), vibrant red flower ever. In my last post on transfer tracing I had begun to stitch this vintage poppy. Here it is, in the color, a few years back, I would have never chose to stitch with.
I chose different hues of red to have some shading on the flower. The same way in the black center. If you have ever noticed black in nature...as in crow's wings, butterfly's wings, and some flowers, the black gives off a blue highlight. I chose black and a darker blue for the french knot center. You can click on the pictures to see a better view ( I hope).

I also noticed the poppy has little brown "hairs" that run along the bud and stem.

As you know, I appreciate your input and comments....

Now my question to all of you.... I plan to place this stitched piece onto a towel.....as in my earlier posts......what color of towel do you think would be best? Red......green.... black? As you have gotten "more mature" in the years.... have you found yourself changing your ideas about something that you thought you would never like? I would love to hear!

An Easier Way To Trace A Transfer

Whenever I am fortunate enough to have vintage transfers and a nice piece of fabric, I don't want to take risks of ruining the fabric or the transfer by using a hot iron. So I hand trace my transfers on.
I am sure most of you are already familiar with taping the transfer onto a sunny window,

and then standing and tracing it onto the fabric. For me, this works well, however, I do a lot of my work at night.....no sunny window to trace from, plus with the load of work I do, this technique is hard on my arms and shoulders. So I found a much better way......

I have a beautiful antique wood table. It has served many purposes,.... to feed family on, to serve as my kitchen island, now that I have a dining room table..... and it is wonderful to trace my designs on. If you have any table that splits into to add another leaf.... it will work fine.

I use the frame and clear glass of an 11x14 picture frame as my "window".

A small desk reading lamp with a bendable neck is also important.

Pull the table apart, just wide enough to support the picture frame. Lay the picture frame over the space of the open table. Tape the picture frame in place.

Turn the neck of the lamp upside down to where the lamp is shining up. Place the lamp underneath the table, right under the picture frame.

Tape the transfer in place on the glass of the frame, position the light to shine up through the transfer.

Place fabric over transfer and trace your image.

It turns out well, and if you like, you can also sit and trace the design instead of standing over it.

I hope this might be an easier method for all of you who trace your transfers. It really helped me to get my work done at night. Hopefully I will now have this stitched to show at a later post. Have a blessed weekend!

Monica's handspun silk thread

Several days ago, I had visited Stephanie's blog, Queen Of Dreamsz, http://queenofdreamsz.blogspot.com/ please go visit this wonderful lady. She had posted about her friend Monica over at Just Ducky http://justducky48.blogspot.com/. Monica spins silk thread by hand. It is just beautifu!. Go visit Monica to see for yourself. I commented on Stephanie's blog about how pretty I thought Monica's thread was....a little bit later, Stephanie, sent me a beautiful skein of it! Thank you so much Stephanie.
I have emailed back and forth with Monica and she is busy spinning more beautiful colors and hopes to one day sell. I worked up a small design with this thread. I was so amazed at how strong it was. I used cotton fabric to stitch on and the thread never broke even with all of the tight stitches I made.
This is truly wonderful thread! I would choose this thread to work several projects with if it were available. So to Monica, at Just Ducky, you have done such a good job! Your thread is high quality! And Stephanie, atQueen of Dreamz, thank you for sharing this information about Monica's work with all of us! And thank you for sending me some to work with!

There's just something about a white cotton cloth and white embroidery

First of all.... I want to thank each one of you who left a comment and told me what kinds of flowers you would like to see stitched on linens I have for sale soon. Your comments were so helpful and "woke me up" to the other possibilities beyond roses.

I was fortunate enough to find several large 38in.x 38in. hemmed white cotton cloths a few months back. Whenever I see such items, my thoughts lean towards the vintage embroidery done years ago with white thread on linens.

I received several vintage iron on transfers before Christmas and this one particular design captured my heart. I could just picture it stitched in browns, earth greens and dusty pinks... however, as I was tracing it onto one of the white cloths...
I knew it would be so pretty done in heirloom stitches with white thread.

I have been stitching on it for the past few days and I am liking the results, even though this is just base stitching and not the finished result ( I really don't like to show the early stages of this stitching, because it looks "bad". But the finished result will look beautiful. This is just the center design of the cloth... it will need edge and corner designs as well as a border stitch. Much work in the months ahead.. I will decide on these factors as I go. Although I need to sell these kinds of things... I really want to keep this for my dining room table. If this turns out the way I hope.. I will embroider the other cloths for future sell. Now my question to all of you....... would you rather have white on white embroidery with designs like this...or would you rather have a palette of colors? Which colors? You have all helped so much in your comments on this subject and I am keeping note. I can't wait to hear from you all!