Several weeks ago I'd bought this pattern Vintage Sewing Collage by the Australian designer Gail Pan, from Cross Patch in Wales. Along with the pattern, which includes the full-size traceable sheet and very easy to follow instructions, Julia had included some tape measure ribbon and ric-rac for trimming it with. After deliberating for absolutely ages about what colour thread to use for the hand embroidery, I decided to use one of the beautiful spools of hand dyed Valdani variegated perle thread that is part of the Cross Patch Favourites collection. I used the P11 colour and teamed it with a piece of linen. The design was traced using a lightbox and a very fine tipped Micron Pigma pen (my favourite is the 005 size nib in brown). This Valdani perle thread was a delight to sew with and this picture really doesn't do it justice as it looks even better in real life...
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...I've added some colonial knots to the ric-rac trimming, using another one of those gorgeous hand-dyed Valdani perle threads from the Cross Patch Favourites collection. A good rummage in my enormous button tin produced some antique buttons that have been stitched into place...
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...for the background of this piece, I used some "vintage sewing-themed" fabric that had been in my fabric box forever. Unfortunately it was only a fat quarter and the selvege with the fabric information on was missing, so I have no idea of designer or fabric collection that it's from.The tape measure ribbon has been "coffee stained" to make it look older before being machine stitched in place, along with some sewing themed bits and bobs for embellishment...
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...a quick trip to my local Hobbycraft store for some more supplies (I love their white box frames) and I was ready to get it finished. The embroidered linen was machine appliqued into place on the background fabric. A layer of polyester felted wadding was fused to the wrong side of the background fabric, then it was quilted very simply. A piece of thick card was covered in another layer of felted polyester wadding, and the background fabric was wrapped around it and secured into place with a layer of craft glue. Now it's been framed in a Hobbycraft deep box frame, and it's ready to display on the wall in my sewing studio!
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