A Stitch in Time

In my browsing travels, I came across the site of Exceedingly Curious, and loved what was there. [I've added the link to my sidebar.] Lots of lovely scans of an Ingalls embroidery transfer catalogue from 1886, all beautifully scanned and shared for all of us stitchers. There's animals and children, flowers galore, and monograms. Such sharing warms the cockles, it does.
Here's one I found appealing, I thought this would look lovely on a needlecase:

Good Morning!

Here's another charming design from Exceedingly Curious, a "good morning" pillowcase.
I've tried to flip the picture so that the lettering is backwards and traceable, please let me know if I need to amend it to make it useful.


Click on picture to view full size and print.

Merry Christmas!

Happy Christmas!, originally uploaded by drewzel.

I hope you give and receive lots of fun stitchy gifts! Happy Holidays!

Lambs, flowers and chickens

60s pattern 2, originally uploaded by drewzel.

This is from an English magazine called 'Woman's Own' of about 1965 or so. I particularly like the little birdie on the blossoms.

60s pattern 1, originally uploaded by drewzel.

6 Dutch girls for kitchen linens

Oh, this poor transfer packet, someone's ripped the middle of the cover right off it. Tut tut. However, the sheet inside is uncut, but slightly water damaged. Sweet little Dutch girls doing chores for your towels. What I like about these ones, is that in most of them, she's being helped by a little kitten. So I've picked the one of the girl cooking which you can see in the right hand corner.

Click here to view all sizes and print a copy out. I've tried to tidy it up with the Microsoft Paint program, it's still a little messy, but clear enough to stitch. Mmm chicken.

Deer doiley

deer doiley detail, originally uploaded by drewzel.

It probably comes as no surprise to you that I have a little collection of vintage linen. My mother always had doileys everywhere when I was growing up, she was very fond of the traced linen kits of the 50's. So I find it hard to pass any by when thrift shopping. My criteria is usually that it's well made and an attractive design, or that can be unpicked and re-stitched.

I found this one while thrift shopping yesterday. It has an identical deer motif at each end, and I'd say by the style and colours, was made in the 1930's. Its showing it's age somewhat, but I'm hoping with an good clean and press, it will come up beautifully. I think it's quite charming.

Zodiac signs

zodiac signs, originally uploaded by drewzel.

Just a quick one, this sheet from 1965 was in amongst some older ones I got off e-bay.com.au recently. I thought the zodiac signs might be handy for you stitchers out there.

Pattern for place mats

I found this in an old issue of the Modern Priscilla magazine (July 1928), and I think it's charming. I've photographed it as best I could and I plan on trying to enlarge it so that I can make a pattern big enough to trace.

The text says:

Embroider it in three shades of green as suggested in the picture or in three
shades of blue as planned by the designer. The effect with either
color against the shiny white cloth is delightfully cool and with edges blanket
stitched and finished with a crochet edging is all there is to it.
The complete set consists of one 18 inch centerpiece, four 12 x 17
inch napkins, and four 18 inch napkins, stamped on pure white linen finish Art Cotton.

Superior Kittens

Ask any kitteh and they'll tell you they're superior. Obviously the pattern company agreed, for they featured kitty images on teacups in this set of transfers. Unfortunately, 3 of mine are missing, but the rest are unused. Stitch your kitty on a teacup today!
The printable pics are in my Flickr photoset.

Revenge of the Lobster

Just thought I'd share a pic of the set of hankies I stitched, featuring a design from Floresita's pattern - McCall's 1166 (blogged here). I love lobsters (!) but not to eat, so this pattern really appealed, as crazy as it is, because I think dropping live lobsters into boiling water is needlessly cruel. Go lobster, go!

Confused

mystery pattern, originally uploaded by drewzel.

I'm a bit baffled...I got this transfer sheet in a vintage lot from e-bay and it didn' t come with a cover. Reading here makes me think it's an Aunt Martha's pattern set because of the number, but looking here has got me all confused because the fish'n'chips, ham'n'eggs etc also appear on an Vogart design 259 - Smart Slogans.
Anyone got any suggestions?