Tag: embroidery

This is another set I did sort of without a pattern. In my head it would look something like this vintage pattern I saw on flickr. Didn’t really turn out like that in the end. They are okay, but I was never very happy with them. It just looked too skimpy, like it needed more substance, more stitches, heavier lines, something… more.Oh, well. Didn’t really matter. Grandma Gloria knew exactly which set she wanted: this set. I think it is mostly because I was working on this set for several weeks during her cardiac rehab therapy. Either that or she just likes that the peach matches her bedroom.

Grandma Gloria has always favored strong, bold colors in her decorating. Remind me to tell you all about her house someday. Maybe I’ll even take pictures. You’re just going to love her retina-burning-yellow bathroom.Thread used:
DMC dark peach #352
DMC light peach #353
DMC dark teal #3809
DMC medium teal #597

This was the first set that I did with no pattern. I just picked some pretty blue colors and drew six lines across the front of each pillowcase, 1/2 inch apart. Then I marked each line with measured dots so that my stitches would be consistent. I just made it up as I went along. When they were done, I thought it looked like maybe I could have placed each row a bit closer together, or added another one or two rows. But I needed to move on, and everyone said they thought it looked finished, so I just went with it.

My step-mother Kathy didn’t seem to think there was anything wrong with the pattern, either. She snatched this set right up from the basket at Christmas. She said that she liked that they weren’t all flowery and girly.

The thread I used:
DMC varigated blue #121
And three other blues I forgot to write down. Oops.

As I mentioned in the last post, I liked the Passion Flower pattern from Bucilla so much that I copied it onto another set of pillowcases for my massive Christmas gift project. One good thing about this pattern is that it stitches up very quickly.

This time, I used thread colors a bit closer to the pattern’s recommendations. Unfortunately, I forgot to write them down.

My cousin Nikki picked this set from the basket at Christmas. She was really pleased, saying the purple matched something in her bedroom. They seem like her to me. Really simple, with clean, modern lines, but still a bit girly, ’cause they are flowers.

This pattern is Passion Flowers from Bucilla. My dear friend Jessica picked these out months ago, and we poured over DMC’s thread color chart to find the exact right colors to match her bedding.

The thread we chose:

Of course, I didn’t use the colors recommended in the pattern, but I like these simple flowers so much that I ended up doing a second set, and I’ve scanned the pattern so that I can reduce and enlarge the design for future use.

The simple running stitch looks so clean and simple I’m sure that I’ll be using this again and again.