thursday = embroidery

I thrifted a bunch of these crazy quilt blocks at an estate sale recently & wanted to try doing a simple line drawing embroidery on one:


I think a series hung together would look very nice so I will have to add that to my list of things to do.

moving onto today's embroidery sample:



this little house would be a great design to embroider for a house warming gift...

{in addition to the house I'm posting the other 5 designs on flickr}

happy stitching!

american thread co. begin to knit booklets

I picked these up thrifting...there is no copyright date or illustrator info:

a before & after

I recently purchased this at an estate sale for $2:


it had some issues...two of the blades were broken, there was some fire damage to the roof & one of the angels had lost her halo {you can't tell from the photo because it was after I took it apart & removed their metal wings and halos}. so I didn't feel bad about painting it:


I added some vintage millinery flowers & created a backstory to account for their outfits...they are french nuns who wear pink habits and grow flowers at a convent located in the countryside outside of paris.


that's babette - she likes to sneak out at night & sit at the outdoor cafes in paris.

saturday...

I drove to an estate sale in winfield, ks. I also stopped in oxford on my way home for a pulled pork sandwich, baked beans & potato salad at a church who was having a little sale. and I took photos:




{there are more photos, if you're interested - here}

fake'in friday

before I sign off for the weekend I just wanted to say thank you for all your wonderful comments on the clock! I am so flattered, encouraged & happy that you liked it :)


{have a great weekend!}

thursday = embroidery

finally...its done!





I have been looking for a colorful black forest type clock while thrifting for some time but with no luck - so one day I got impatient and decided I'd just have to make one.

I went online & found images of real clocks I liked, than combined all the features I liked into one clock, which I drew in illustrator. I cut out all the colored fabric, than appliquéd it onto the brown fabric - stretched the whole thing on a 14" hoop {largest I've ever used & not as awkward as I thought it would be} then embroidered the detail in. I used foam core to back the whole thing, then finally added the clock mechanism. from the very tip of the house to the bottom of the lowest pinecone "weight" it is 24" - the house is 11.5" from top to bottom & 10.5" across.

it was a very satisfying project & I'm really happy with the way it turned out. hopefully my next project won't take so long to complete {this one didn't need to take as long as it did...I just kept being interrupting by other things} and there will be more crafty things being posted here than there have been lately.

of course it wouldn't be thursday without a vintage embroidery sample:


and, for a great round up of more embroidery patterns check out one pretty thing too :)

happy stitching!

frais!

the vintage button tag pdf was on the marie claire idees blog:


giddy would probably be the best way to describe how I felt when I found out :)

p.s. frais! = cool! {I hope}

1976 better homes & gardens creative crafts & stitchery

picked this book up thrifting recently & thought I'd share some of the images I found inspiring...

more photos of small thrifted things

sunday @ the flea market

fake'in friday

{have a great weekend!}

thursday = embroidery

first, I'd like to thank everyone for their nice comments about the button & trim tags - I'm so happy you like them!

I'd also like to welcome new visitors who have come via how about orange, craft, inner circle or any of the other nice people who blogged about the tags - hi!

since I don't have any of my own embroidery to share with you this week {hopefully next week though} I thought I'd post these photos from a 1975 coats & clark pamphlet I thrifted recently as a little inspiration:





and finally, here's your vintage embroidery sample for this week:


happy stitching!

vintage button tags

UPDATE: sadly the host for this pdf has changed & in the process the file was lost plus I'm not able to find my original file so I can't make it available again...so sorry...if I happen to find the file I'll update this post again with new info.

this past weekend I thrifted a bag of buttons still on their cards & thought "hey, those would be cute tags...you should totally make another pdf download instead of cleaning!"

so I did:


{download the free pdf}

dandy lion

1 + 1 = 6

one estate sale + one trip to the thrift store = 6 new paint by numbers





I might need a paint by number 12 step program or something...

hippity hoppity

{happy easter!}

fake'in friday

from a walk taken last saturday:





{have a great weekend!}