Erica Wilson "Beginners Spring Tree Picture " Kit 1973

 

It is very gloomy here today with a storm raging outside as I am writing this  . I have shut myself away in the study with some nice music on  .

I climbed into my time machine and have travelled back to the much happier time of 1973 !  

So this is Erica Wilson's design the "Beginner's Spring Tree Picture " No 7417 from Columbia Minerva Creative Crewel .

I love doing these vintage kits  !

I thought this looked a nice and easy kit to do , for when I get the odd minute or two , during these stressful times . I found it on a well known auction site , for not too bad a price really . It came with a huge tangle of wool , some of it not belonging to the kit , but I knew I could soon sort it all out .

Erica Wilson designed this kit inspired  by one of her children's drawings and I love the cheeky little animals she has put in . Frog , butterflies and squirrels .

So the instructions suggest that I begin by doing the big pink Daisy Stitched flowers , followed by the tree trunk.

The kit comes with a colour picture of how the completed kit should look , always good to refer to that and an instruction sheet which tells you the best order to do it in .

Also a  Crewel Embroidery Stitch Chart , which is two really useful pages of how to do lots of different embroidery stitches . 

I like to brush up on the basic stitches every now and then  .

I pulled out a length of the pale pink wool and was very surprised to see how thick the wool in this kit is ! The design is also printed on a surprisingly thin piece of cotton.....which I knew straight away was going to make this a bit tricky .

This is strange because kits from around this time were usually printed on much thicker fabrics , heavy linen , even hessian . So I am surprised that Erica approved of this such thin cotton .

I think back then , was a time of when people would say "anything goes ! "  

            " Hey Man ! Anything goes !"  😄 ☮️ 💗

    I see that it does say on the instruction sheet that " The stitches should be bold enough to give a textured effect ." 

 It is really strange to stitch with such fat wool .

I,m much more used to stitching with crewel wool , see the thin green wool in this picture .

  That dark pink wool looks a whole lot brighter than on the picture on the kit packet . A lot brighter ! 😎

Anyway   ....  

Cheerful colours to brighten up this very gloomy day !   🌈