Here's my towel! It's not original or unusual by any means but the unique thing about my towel project, is that this towel is vintage!
My sister found it in with some things from her mother in law. To quote my sister Kathi, "you're the one that likes all this moldy oldie stuff!" Ha, ha, ha! Yes, I just love old stuff!
Anyway, it had some stains on it but with some Spray & Wash and a good run through my washing machine, I was able to get most of it out.
The fruit design is from one of my vintage Vogart transfers. As you can see, it has the red lines down the sides. I couldn't get the whole thing on the scanner but it's enough for you to see.
For those you who are making your towels from scratch, if you can't decide on what size to make it, I cut mine 16 inches X 24 inches. I hope this helps.
I'm going to display this on top of my microwave with my Fire King Batter Bowl and a small collection of vintage kitty figurines. Next time I have the digi out, I'll try to remember to take a photo of it. Or maybe I can get Scott to take a photo of it for us! I can take great pictures of hummingbirds which are in constant motion but give me something standing still and I end up with a big blurry mess!
Cross Stitch Patterns inspired by nature, animals, holidays and scripture by Pamela Kellogg
Wednesday, July 20, 2005
Crayon Tinting
I've mentioned Crayon Tinting several times in my blogging but I don't think I ever explained what it is.
Wax crayons were first manufactured in the late 1800's. Sometime in those early days, it was discovered that crayons don't wash out of fabric! The story I heard is that some mom somewhere found that her little one left a crayon in a pocket and we all know where this is going! I don't have children, but I'm sure many of you can relate to this!
Shortly thereafter, newspapers and women's magazines were suggesting color tinting as a quick and easy replacement for applique. And of course, needlework catalogs eventually began to offer pretinted linens. I've also read that due to hard economic times, crayon tinting became a good way to conserve embroidery thread.
Here's a beautiful example of crayon tinting. This piece was worked by Robin, one of the stitchers at my Ez Board. Robin was kind enough to allow me to share her photo with my readers. Robin's pattern is an Aunt Martha's Iron-On Transfer design.
The technique for crayon tinting is quite easy. Simply apply your design to your fabric (I use muslin or quilter's cotton and it's suggested that you prewash to remove sizing) either by tracing your design with a washout blue pen or ironing on your transfer design.
Make a pad of several layers of fabric and lay your design piece on top of that. You won't want to color on a hard surface. To get the soft look you'll need the pad of fabric as a cushion. Using regular everyday old fashioned crayons (I use Crayola) color your design as if you were coloring on paper. When you're happy with how it looks, press it with your iron between two sheets of paper. The excess wax will come off on the paper rather than on your iron. Then stitch as desired.
It's very easy and quite charming! Thank you so much Robin, for allowing me to share your work with my readers!
A good book to start with is "Vintage Tinted Linens & Quilts" by Design Originals.
Wax crayons were first manufactured in the late 1800's. Sometime in those early days, it was discovered that crayons don't wash out of fabric! The story I heard is that some mom somewhere found that her little one left a crayon in a pocket and we all know where this is going! I don't have children, but I'm sure many of you can relate to this!
Shortly thereafter, newspapers and women's magazines were suggesting color tinting as a quick and easy replacement for applique. And of course, needlework catalogs eventually began to offer pretinted linens. I've also read that due to hard economic times, crayon tinting became a good way to conserve embroidery thread.
Here's a beautiful example of crayon tinting. This piece was worked by Robin, one of the stitchers at my Ez Board. Robin was kind enough to allow me to share her photo with my readers. Robin's pattern is an Aunt Martha's Iron-On Transfer design.
The technique for crayon tinting is quite easy. Simply apply your design to your fabric (I use muslin or quilter's cotton and it's suggested that you prewash to remove sizing) either by tracing your design with a washout blue pen or ironing on your transfer design.
Make a pad of several layers of fabric and lay your design piece on top of that. You won't want to color on a hard surface. To get the soft look you'll need the pad of fabric as a cushion. Using regular everyday old fashioned crayons (I use Crayola) color your design as if you were coloring on paper. When you're happy with how it looks, press it with your iron between two sheets of paper. The excess wax will come off on the paper rather than on your iron. Then stitch as desired.
It's very easy and quite charming! Thank you so much Robin, for allowing me to share your work with my readers!
A good book to start with is "Vintage Tinted Linens & Quilts" by Design Originals.
Tuesday, July 19, 2005
Vintage Style Kitchen Towel Challenge
So how would you all like another challenge? I know some of my readers are working on other projects but this one should be quick and hopefully, fun to do!
Towels are one of my favorite things to stitch! I hang them on the door of my Hoosier cabinet and change them with the holidays and seasons. And I make of them for gifts too!
Ok, here's the criteria:
Make a vintage style towel either from scratch or using a purchased dishtowel. I don't recommend terrycloth. I think cotton is easier to work with but I'll leave that up to you.
You can do embroidery, either by designing your own pattern or you can use an iron-on transfer design such as Aunt Martha's. You're welcome to use vintage patterns too like I do with my vintage Vogart collection!
If you prefer, you can do applique either by hand or machine. If you like crayon tinting, feel free to use that.
You're welcome to embellish it with vintage fabric, reproduction fabric, rick rack, crocheting, tatting or anything else vintage that you can think of.
The only thing I would prefer you not to use is counted cross stitch since counted work was not available in the 30's and 40's.
You're welcome to use any vintage patterns you may have like I did with my vintage style apron.
Here are a few photos of some of the towels I've made to give you an idea of what you can do and what vintage should look like:
The strawberry towel is hand appliqued with blanket stitching and embroidery. The border is tatting.
This design is from one of my vintage Vogart patterns. The border is one of my reproduction 30's prints.
Another of my vintage Vogart embroidery patterns bordered with gingham check and rickrack.
Last but not least, another vintage Vogart embroidery pattern bordered simply with some blue rickrack.
All of these towels are made from scratch using white quilters cotton fabric.
If you remember my Days Of The Week Rooster towels, those were worked on Martha Stewart Days Of The Week cotton towels available at KMart. The days are already on there.
I will have my towel ready to show you tomorrow. Yes, I got the idea last night while I was stitching on a towel. Mine towel is actually vintage!
Anyway, when you complete you project, email me a photo along with a brief description of what you did to accomplish your vintage look such as what items or techniques you used and I will post the photos and your descriptions here at the blog. If you use vintage patterns and want to scan the cover photo, I'll be happy to include that as well.
I can't wait to see what you all come up with!
Enjoy everyone!
Towels are one of my favorite things to stitch! I hang them on the door of my Hoosier cabinet and change them with the holidays and seasons. And I make of them for gifts too!
Ok, here's the criteria:
Make a vintage style towel either from scratch or using a purchased dishtowel. I don't recommend terrycloth. I think cotton is easier to work with but I'll leave that up to you.
You can do embroidery, either by designing your own pattern or you can use an iron-on transfer design such as Aunt Martha's. You're welcome to use vintage patterns too like I do with my vintage Vogart collection!
If you prefer, you can do applique either by hand or machine. If you like crayon tinting, feel free to use that.
You're welcome to embellish it with vintage fabric, reproduction fabric, rick rack, crocheting, tatting or anything else vintage that you can think of.
The only thing I would prefer you not to use is counted cross stitch since counted work was not available in the 30's and 40's.
You're welcome to use any vintage patterns you may have like I did with my vintage style apron.
Here are a few photos of some of the towels I've made to give you an idea of what you can do and what vintage should look like:
The strawberry towel is hand appliqued with blanket stitching and embroidery. The border is tatting.
This design is from one of my vintage Vogart patterns. The border is one of my reproduction 30's prints.
Another of my vintage Vogart embroidery patterns bordered with gingham check and rickrack.
Last but not least, another vintage Vogart embroidery pattern bordered simply with some blue rickrack.
All of these towels are made from scratch using white quilters cotton fabric.
If you remember my Days Of The Week Rooster towels, those were worked on Martha Stewart Days Of The Week cotton towels available at KMart. The days are already on there.
I will have my towel ready to show you tomorrow. Yes, I got the idea last night while I was stitching on a towel. Mine towel is actually vintage!
Anyway, when you complete you project, email me a photo along with a brief description of what you did to accomplish your vintage look such as what items or techniques you used and I will post the photos and your descriptions here at the blog. If you use vintage patterns and want to scan the cover photo, I'll be happy to include that as well.
I can't wait to see what you all come up with!
Enjoy everyone!
The Next 6 Aprons
Ok, I've finished up my design work for the day a little bit early so I thought I'd share the next 6 aprons with you.
July - The American flag is made of ribbons sewn onto a foundation and then appliqued down.
August - This cute little sunshine is machine appliqued. My mom designed him. He reminds me of the sunshine on the Kellogg's Raisin Bran box. Maybe that's where she got the idea. I really like the fabric on the back!
September - Again, the schoolhouse is machine appliqued and the "abc - 123" are machine embroidered.
October - More machine applique for this little pumpkin.
November - This little harvest design is counted cross stitch. For my readers outside the US, our American Thanksgiving holiday is in November.
December - Last but not least in this series, is the December apron. Mom decided that since I was born in December, that she would use my Zodiac sign which is Capricorn instead of doing a Christmas design. She did make me a Christmas apron but it's not part of this series. I'll share that one tomorrow. The Capricorn is counted cross stitch.
That's all of the aprons in this series now. I have several more to share with you but I'll wait until tomorrow. I'm just about ready to stitch.
July - The American flag is made of ribbons sewn onto a foundation and then appliqued down.
August - This cute little sunshine is machine appliqued. My mom designed him. He reminds me of the sunshine on the Kellogg's Raisin Bran box. Maybe that's where she got the idea. I really like the fabric on the back!
September - Again, the schoolhouse is machine appliqued and the "abc - 123" are machine embroidered.
October - More machine applique for this little pumpkin.
November - This little harvest design is counted cross stitch. For my readers outside the US, our American Thanksgiving holiday is in November.
December - Last but not least in this series, is the December apron. Mom decided that since I was born in December, that she would use my Zodiac sign which is Capricorn instead of doing a Christmas design. She did make me a Christmas apron but it's not part of this series. I'll share that one tomorrow. The Capricorn is counted cross stitch.
That's all of the aprons in this series now. I have several more to share with you but I'll wait until tomorrow. I'm just about ready to stitch.
Speaking Of Aprons!
A few years after Scott and I got married, back when I still made an effort to actually cook interesting meals, my mother made me a set of aprons, one for each month of the year. My sister had just gotten married too so mom made us both a set.
Well, I thought they were so pretty, too pretty to use, so I decided to save them for awhile. I think she made them for us for Christmas 1990. Yikes! Up until now, I was still saving them. Well, with the current apron craze going on, I am now using them! I pulled them all out the other day and I photographed them to share with you. Remember, my photography is far from good!
Except for the cross-stitched ones, mom designed the patterns herself. Here they are:
January - the drink is cross-stitch and the streamers are ribbons that she couched down with the sewing machine.
February - the heart is eyelet fabric that mom appliqued.
March - the traditional Irish verse is counted cross stitch.
April - this one is my favorite! The easter egg is done with strips of fabric pieced to a foundation.
Sorry the photo is a little blurry. It looked fine on the 1 inch camera screen! The flowers are little lace appliques and the grass is embroidered by hand.
May - The flowers are appliqued by machine and flower centers are buttons.
June - This one is fun! The strawberry is velour I think. It's fuzzy! I think mom had to hand applique that down.
The months are embroidered on all of them by hand. I folded the corners over on each one so you could see what mom put on the back. I didn't press any of them because most are kept folded in a drawer. I just thought you'd all enjoy seeing them.
I have to get some work done for now but I'll post more a little later.
Well, I thought they were so pretty, too pretty to use, so I decided to save them for awhile. I think she made them for us for Christmas 1990. Yikes! Up until now, I was still saving them. Well, with the current apron craze going on, I am now using them! I pulled them all out the other day and I photographed them to share with you. Remember, my photography is far from good!
Except for the cross-stitched ones, mom designed the patterns herself. Here they are:
January - the drink is cross-stitch and the streamers are ribbons that she couched down with the sewing machine.
February - the heart is eyelet fabric that mom appliqued.
March - the traditional Irish verse is counted cross stitch.
April - this one is my favorite! The easter egg is done with strips of fabric pieced to a foundation.
Sorry the photo is a little blurry. It looked fine on the 1 inch camera screen! The flowers are little lace appliques and the grass is embroidered by hand.
May - The flowers are appliqued by machine and flower centers are buttons.
June - This one is fun! The strawberry is velour I think. It's fuzzy! I think mom had to hand applique that down.
The months are embroidered on all of them by hand. I folded the corners over on each one so you could see what mom put on the back. I didn't press any of them because most are kept folded in a drawer. I just thought you'd all enjoy seeing them.
I have to get some work done for now but I'll post more a little later.
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