Vintage Embroidery for Baby Pillowcase

Anticipating the birth of her first child, Marie at Knitted Gems is busy making darling things for soon-to-be born Elizabeth.  Knowing that Marie is a beautiful knitter, it would be like taking coals to Newcastle to give her a hand knit baby item.

Looking through my vintage pieces of needlework that good friend Dorothay sent me a while back from her mother's and sister's stashes dating from the early 1900's, here is what I found: a baby pillow case cover that was about 3/4 completed in embroidery.

The bunnies and flowers were so cute.  And the flowers gave it a whimsical feel.  But the back of the pillowcase was a grey cotton linen and definitely needed an update.

Here are the project finds that would help complete the "new" pillow after a bit of tweaking with embroidery floss, crayons, and a new piece of fabric backing:  Tracey at Giggleface Studios has an excellent tutorial on using crayons on fabric that can be accessed here. Using those techniques, more color was added to the picture.

Just a  fat quarter of fabric was required for the new backing for the pillowcase.  $1 would purchase a bit of batik color fabric that coordinated with the existing floss colors.

Knowing that Elizabeth has a great chance of inheriting her mother's beautiful strawberry blonde hair color, just a bit of mixed orange and pink embroidery floss was used on the fabric for the little girl's head to make it a personalized pillow for Baby Elly.  A new pillow, a bit of vintage tatting and lace, re-worked embroidery and a bit of sewing turned out this:

This was a fun project, and hopefully the pillow case will be something that Elizabeth will save for her own daughter in future years.

Easy Cowl to Knit

Using only 150 yd. of yarn, the Rievaulx cowl can be knit in a few days.  Here is what designer Kelly Herdrich said about this pattern:

Rievaulx is modeled after the green, rolling landscape on the drive to Rievaulx Abbey, and the gorgeous columns and architecture that make this abbey ruin such an amazing place to visit in Yorkshire. There are two versions for the pattern; one long, drape-y, reversible version, perfect for warmer days, and one snugger, taller version perfect for chilly weather.

Kelly's blog can be accessed here, and the pattern is free.  I modified it by adding a bit more ribbing to make it wider, and held two yarns together while knitting to add some color into the monochrome dark green and brown novelty fiber.  The second, more colorful, yarn was a bit of leftover hand dyed sock yarn in reds, purples and greens.

This cowl will be just the ticket for keeping warm on morning walks.  Thanks, Kelly.

Extreme Knitting

Here is something interesting from this site about extreme knitting:

Rachel John, Extreme Textiles, broke records by knitting with a 1000 strands simultaneously! This video shows the set up of the event and the event itself. This event took place at the Southhill Park Unravel Textiles exhibition in October 2006.

It is a challenge for all of us to take the waste products that our society produces and to put it to good use. This video was made in order to stimulate that process.

Go here to see the video.