Marvelous Monday Motifs - 6/27/2011

You can read all about my idea for Marvelous Monday Motifs here. Today we have pages 19-20 of the J. F. Ingalls Company, 1886 Catalog of Perforated Parchment Stamping Patterns. 

Please NOTE: This catalog is not under copyright any longer; but the scanned version released to the public domain on 17 July 2007 (the source of my information) does come with restrictions. None of these designs can be sold. They are for your individual use.

Vintage Butterfly Pattern

 Isn’t this a beautiful photograph! I love the delicate nature of the stitch design. It is the cover of the October 1918 Needlecraft Magazine.  At first glance, I thought the butterfly cloth to be a small doily…but, each butterfly measures over 9 inches wide! That would make this more of a table cover!

This magazine is one of many vintage documents available for preview at the antique patterns library. I encourage you to go check them all out. As I was reviewing this specific magazine, I saw that it included a photo of the original pattern and instructions. Here is the artwork included in the magazine…

and below I've re-typed the portion of the article that describes the butterfly…(I’ve tried to be correct in the way the author punctuated…and the sentences are long…)

QUOTE:
A Handsome Centerpiece for the Library-Table
By Marion Matthews
“The butterfly is a popular motif, always; and probably it has never been used to better advantage than in the decoration of the centerpiece illustrated. The colors are well chosen and effectively combined; although rich in appearance there is nothing about the work to hint of gaudiness—it is in the best of taste, and the centerpiece may well find a place in the library, living room or hall of any attractive home.
The butterfly measures nine and one-half inches from ti to tip of upper wings, and reminds one of the rare specimens sometimes found in collections, but never seen outside them unless in some tropical land.
The legs and antennae are outlined with black, in close, heavy stitch; body and wings are also outlined with black, but this is not done until the embroidery is completed. The upper part of the body is done solidly with black, as are the tips of the wings. Beginning with the lower part of the body, work the tip in satin-stitch with the darkest shade of golden brown; make the next bar of black, the next with a medium shade of golden brown, the next of black, next of yellow, next with medium brown and finish with the lightest shade of brown. Work the edge of the lower wings, between the lines that are to be outlined with black, with medium brown, taking stitches of this up into the black of the tips, inside the second line fill in the top with dark blue, leave a space which is filled with scattered French knots of yellow, make a narrow band of blue across the wing—outlined on both sides with black, as are all the bars save those across the body: leave a space to be filled with the knows, as before and finish with blue. The upper wings have the space between the lines, or the edge, worked with the darkest shade of brown, taking stitches up into the black tip, as before; two narrow bars of yellow, curved, cross the wing at even distances apart, and the spaces between these and the portion joining the body – also of yellow – are filled in with scattered knots of blue. At the base of the antennae two tiny circles are outlined with yellow and filled in with black. As a whole, the butterfly seems very real indeed. And is certainly a lovely creation of the needle.”
ENDQUOTE

I tried to re-draw the butterfly pattern for you.

 Hope you enjoy the pattern.

Marvelous Monday Motifs - 6/20/2011

You can read all about my idea for Marvelous Monday Motifs here. Today we have pages 17-18 of the J. F. Ingalls Company, 1886 Catalog of Perforated Parchment Stamping Patterns. 

Please NOTE: This catalog is not under copyright any longer; but the scanned version released to the public domain on 17 July 2007 (the source of my information) does come with restrictions. None of these designs can be sold. They are for your individual use.

SRE Basket

Silk Ribbon Basket done with simple Lasy Daisy flowerheads and Straight Stitch leaves. The embroidery work is also simple...French knots, chain stitch, back stitch, stem stitch, and straight stitch. Here is the chart, and I'll include photos of my progress.

First, I wanted to print this on fabric...and started to do muslin on freezer paper. But, then I decided on a piece of moire...however, it was too thick to run through the printer. I removed the paper...and just ran the fabric through. It slipped and slid...and I do not recommend doing that. I lucked out and still got a usable image, so I'm stitching over it. But, I was so scared when it started to shift going through the printer rollers! So, don't try this at home. Here is the chart printed on the moire. 

The basket began with the long straight stitches for the vertical basket lines. Then the horizontal lines were another long straight stitch, woven under/over the previous vertical lines stitched.

The last basket layer was the same process as above, but for the diagonal lines. Next the bottom was chain stitched and the sides were back-stitched.

The top and handle of the basket was four pieces of size 8 perle cotton, lain along the shape of the basket and couched in place with a single strand of the same perle. I used two needles...one really large one to hold the 4-strands...needle up at the start and down at the end. In between...I couched with the second needle.

Then came the French Knot flowers and stem stitch vines

Lastly, the bow. I thought I'd tie a simple bow of silk ribbon and couch it down with some beads...but, then I remembers that I have some really bright blue fiber. So, I couched it in place instead. 

This completed the embroidery portion. The silk ribbon work was easy to do, and is seen in the first photo.I think this design could just as easily be done in satin stitch work too.

Marvelous Monday Motifs - 5/30/11

You can read all about my idea for Marvelous Monday Motifs here. Today we have pages 11-12 of the J. F. Ingalls Company, 1886 Catalog of Perforated Parchment Stamping Patterns. 

Please NOTE: This catalog is not under copyright any longer; but the scanned version released to the public domain on 17 July 2007 (the source of my information) does come with restrictions. None of these designs can be sold. They are for your individual use.

Wednesday Wine Country Monograms -- E

This one is for Eileen G.!

Marvelous Monday Motifs - 5/23/11

You can read all about my idea for Marvelous Monday Motifs here. Today we have pages 9-10 of the J. F. Ingalls Company, 1886 Catalog of Perforated Parchment Stamping Patterns. 

Please NOTE: This catalog is not under copyright any longer; but the scanned version released to the public domain on 17 July 2007 (the source of my information) does come with restrictions. None of these designs can be sold. They are for your individual use.

Marvelous Monday Motifs - 5/16/11

You can read all about my idea for Marvelous Monday Motifs here. Today we have pages 7-8 of the J. F. Ingalls Company, 1886 Catalog of Perforated Parchment Stamping Patterns. 

Please NOTE: This catalog is not under copyright any longer; but the scanned version released to the public domain on 17 July 2007 (the source of my information) does come with restrictions. None of these designs can be sold. They are for your individual use.

Marvelous Monday Motifs - 5/9/11

You can read all about my idea for Marvelous Monday Motifs here. Today we have pages 5-6 of the J. F. Ingalls Company, 1886 Catalog of Perforated Parchment Stamping Patterns. 

Please NOTE: This catalog is not under copyright any longer; but the scanned version released to the public domain on 17 July 2007 (the source of my information) does come with restrictions. None of these designs can be sold. They are for your individual use.

Marvelous Monday Motifs - 5/2/11

Sharing more of the pages from J. F. Ingalls Company, 1886 Catalog of Perforated Parchment Stamping Patterns. Here are pages 3-4.

Please NOTE: This catalog is not under copyright any longer; but the scanned version released to the public domain on 17 July 2007 (the source of my information) does come with restrictions. None of these designs can be sold. They are for your individual use.

Marvelous Monday Motifs!

Thought I'd try something new! Each Monday, I'll be posting two embroidery motifs. No, I'm not going to be creating new ones each week...that would make me "crazy"...and not in a good way! Oh, sometimes they will be something I did myself...but I can not create two each week!

I have over the past couple of years noticed a lot of embroidery motifs (like the one above), posted on the web. Usually these are yellow and terribly hard to use after printing the design out. And a great many of these are not actual motifs really...but scans of a scan (of a scan?) of an old catalog created by the J. F. Ingalls Company. While digging in the archives I found the original scan of the entire 1886 old catalog, all 286 pages! It is full of lovely embroidery designs; hundreds more than I could ever draw! However, it also takes up 223 megabites of memory...and a LONG time to download. And it's a secure pdf file that can not be altered...making pulling photos very tedious. (It takes me using several softwares...(Illustrator, Cute PDF Writer, Picassa, Paint, Adobe Reader) to create a usable motif image. I'm sure there is an easer way, but these are the software packages that I have...and can work!) Because the file is so large, and a secure pdf...I figured that many folks reading my blog might not have taken the time or trouble (or space) to download this entire catalog. And if they did, have found they can only print it. So, each Monday (when I don't have a design of my own to share)...I'll be sharing two pages from this catalog as jpeg files. These can be resized using your photo software. I will also upload these pages in pdf form into the Yahoo Files so you can get them there as well. So, check out these first two pages:

We'll just keep going until we work through the entire catalog!

Please NOTE: This catalog is not under copyright any longer; but the scanned version released to the public domain on 17 July 2007 (the source of my information) does come with restrictions. None of these designs can be sold. They are for your individual use.