a gift for jane

When I was very little I was taught to sew, I completed my first cross stitch on canvas when I was 3, I was given my own sewing machine at 4, by 11 I made the skirt that was my school uniform. You see my mum is an outstanding seamstress and had some training as a tailor too. She taught me because she expected me to know, to sew, knit, crochet, mend, darn, craft and never to be idle.

Now my husband jokes about how I would have made the perfect regency wife, but I don't do much pretty stuff any more, I cover chairs, or make curtains or mend clothes, I found with embroidery they just got finished and put in a drawer. This is the first embroidery I've done in nearly 10 years, and it has a use so I will probably do another (ok, I will do another I bought 1 kg of lavender!), but here it is a gift for a friend.


I started with cutting the felt, I had no iron on vilene on hand, but it would have supported the felt, which had a tendency to fall apart. I had no particular design in mind at this point, so I cut more than I needed.

Then I laid it out and pinned it, with my rough design before taking apart to sew on individual components. (I was sewing on a 4" hoop and so the design was bigger than the hoop, hence having to take it apart again).

If I'd had yellow felt I would probably have just appliquéd the sun, but as it was I had to embroider so I used the felt as a template to give it a little bulk, first sewing over the beams (that bent beam got covered by a cloud :)) 

After completing all of the appliqué I stamped the sunshine and then back stitched over it, that is a french knot on the dot of the i.

Sewing up to a pillow about 4 1/2" wide, with a two inch opening at the bottom. Ribbon was sewn in the top of the pillow and secured with another row of stitching. Then the excess was trimmed and a zig zag stitched taken around all  of the raw edges, I sewed the three closed sides together for speed.

Just to put a shout out to my old benina here, it is 18 years older than I, and my mum bought it when she went away to college. It gets serviced every other year but is still going strong.

Didn't I say I had a lot of lavender!!!

And here is the finished article

Thanks for reading all the way to the bottom :).