This is my favorite type of embroidery — outline stitch with one stand of floss and a complex design. Vintage children’s book illustrations are my favorite source of designs. Although I love collecting and sharing vintage transfers and embroidery patterns on Flickr, for some strange reason I rarely use them in my own work.

Back to the cross-stitch….I used 18 count Aida with DMC floss. The design is a combination of motifs from two different DMC Library Leisure Booklets (Small Figures and Garlands) published in the late seventies. These are such cute booklets, and although they are no longer in print, you can still find them on ebay.

I feel a little guilty about this picture, because I never made anything similar for Emily. I also finished an Elliott birth sampler on linen which is very sweet, but I never framed it. Emily did get her own stitched ABC Book, but no cross-stitch from me, although my mother cross-stitched a cute baby blanket for her. I guess that’s the way it is with the second child.

The catalog is large at 10″ x 15″ and, although the 76 pages have become very dark with age, it is in amazingly good condition. The printing is not perfect and the designs are packed onto the pages — but this is a catalog, of course, and not meant to be a source for copying patterns. Because the pages are large and the designs are small, I am scanning half pages at a higher resolution than normal, and storing them in my Flickr set rather than on my blog.

It is a slow process to lighten the pages without losing detail on the patterns, but I am gradually working my way through the book. It’s something I like to do in bed late at night which my husband thinks is crazy. It can be tedious, but it’s also very satisfying. I hope my embroiderer readers will enjoy them — I think they are a treasure.

These designs would also look pretty used individually — I’m thinking on a pillow for a birthday gift.

I just managed to find the chart with flower names and colors which I have added as the last photo in the gallery.

This picture may be my favorite of the 12 different drawings in the coloring book.  Once again, most of the block was done in stem stitch, but the lettering on the marmalade and the spider webs were back stitched.  The picture for this block can be found in this previous post.

This embroidered block was very enjoyable to stitch — the tiny outline work really appeals to me, although I did struggle with Alice’s face. The whole piece is stitched with one strand of DMC floss #498, using stem stitch and a few French knots for buttons and eyes. The color is a darker red than I have used in the past, but it seemed to fit the style of the old drawings. The embroidery design area is 6 1/2″ x 10″ and the pattern page is located here.

I just finished cleaning up two more pages in the book. Page 7 with the Duchess was horrible because the child had used black crayon on both the duchess’s face and the cat. I’m done with the really bad pages now, so the rest of the clean-up should go much faster.

The original is a large design (15″ x 20″) and it would probably be a hassle getting the design onto fabric because of the size and all the cross-stitch x’s. A lightened, reversed copy (along with the directions) is also available under my downloads, just in case you want to try it.

Since I am working on a Christmas quilt and am still sort of “in the spirit,” I thought I would post this darling pattern just in case someone would like to stitch it up for Christmas, 2010. This may be my all-time favorite cover of Needlecraft, The Home Arts Magazine.  The designer’s name is a little hard to make out, but I think it’s Georgietta Brown Horbeson. UPDATE: I was contacted by Embroiderist on Flickr (who has an amazing collection of vintage embroidery patterns), and she said “This cover art is by American needlework artist Georgiana Brown (Mrs. Frank Godwin) Harbeson 1894 -1980.  She did a whole series of these needlework covers in the early 1930’s.” Here is the tiny blurb about the cover which was on one of the inside pages.

This Month’s Cover Design

No. 33 – 23 – 43.  Christmas Morning Hot-iron transfer-pattern.  15 cents. Perforated stamping-pattern, 30 cents. Design stamped on 22 1/2-by-23-inch cream linen, 55 cents. Crewel wool to embroider, $1.60.  (Color-and-stitch chart included  with patterns and stamped materials).

I wish I could order that stamped linen with all the wool for $2.15, but I’ll just have to make do with this funky pattern I made in Photoshop. It didn’t turn out as well as I’d hoped (and you probably will need to use a light box instead of a transfer pencil because of all the stitching lines), but maybe having both the original photo and the pattern in its original size will enable me (and you) to copy this cute embroidery.

We are in the last stages of a complete kitchen remodel and have to be out of the house for the Swedish floor refinishing

My cat, Jack (the biter) was just diagnosed with chronic liver failure

My Bernina had to go into the shop for repair

For now, here are some more vintage transfers.  I hope to have some more interesting posts next week.  This is the first time I have used the gallery feature on WordPress — just click on the image to enlarge.

Poor Emily had to wait until she was five before she finally got her real stocking (in the interim she made do with a ballerina stocking). Fortunately, I was able to find the girl pattern and I had enough of the original lining fabric and trim to finish Emily’s stocking.