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 !   🌈

 

 

Elsa Williams #00078 Woodland Animals Crewel Kit finished

 Feeling happy to have finished the Elsa Williams Woodland Animals Crewel kit #00078  , which is a beautiful sampler of different basic embroidery stitches .

  Heritage Embroidery by Elsa Williams Published - Van Nostrand Rienhold Company in 1967 .

 I dipped into this vintage embroidery book , every now and again to take a clearer look at the stitch instructions .
 I would say that on the whole most of these basic stitches , could be learnt from the book, if you were a complete beginner .... with the exception maybe of the the French knot and the Tufted stitch , which would be better if someone could sit beside you and show you . There are plenty of youtubes and tutorials on line , but there's nothing like having someone actually demonstrate it to you .

                   So ,   " Dear Elsa Williams , what do you think of my French Knots ? "

 The Tufted Stitch  , was the most frightening stitch for me , but I think I have grasped it now .

 I finally chose this shade of green for the centre of the main large sunflower , this was not clear at all on the instructions .

                That tiny little pink flower , each petal all different shades of rose-pink  !

                                         Then to proudly stitch my name on .

                      The reverse ...for those who strangely always insist on seeing it  .
I always begin and end on the front and use every little scrap of thread. I never throw any of the cut off ends of threads away . I am very miserly with my crewel wool !
  I have plenty of bundles thread left over..except for the palest  yellow /gold . I used up all but about one inch of it and used that last bit to stitch the daisy in my name . Very strange how they  didn't put so much of the yellow into the kit ....anyone else with less stitching experience might have run out of this pale yellow wool and been stuck .
 I'll have to have a think about what I can do with this left over crewel wool .

             So now I,ve finished it and am thinking about having it framed .
I have another project, a medieval picture to finish , one I,ve designed myself  and have been slowly working on over the last year .
    So maybe I,ll show you some of this next time  . Happy stitching .

Furry Creatures continued...

 Very fiddly , this Tufted Stitch is very scary ! The caterpillar on the kit picture has been worked slightly differently to the kit instructions diagram , which gives the caterpillar more  stripes ...I think he looks proper Cornish ..and decided to work him with more stripes. I still need to stitch in his antennae and feet .
 Then on to that squirrel . I forgot to take a picture here , of the guide lines that I found helpful to draw on with a pencil , to remind myself of the stitch direction , the way the fur lies .
 One of the annoying things about these kits is trying to make sure the stitches cover the printed lines . When I design my own  pictures I use a pencil and as I work over it, the pencil lines disappear . When I have completed this kit , I will go back over it and tidy up all those turquoise lines .
 I continued with three shades of the crewel wool for his bushy tail .

 Looking good so far ,This stitch has various other names such as Carpet stitch and Turkey Work . Then to carefully snip all the loops .

All loops carefully snipped and then I spent a very meditative 20 mins or so just teasing apart each of those snipped woolen threads , to give it a more blended and softer squirrelly tail look .
 Tomorrow I,ll begin the rabbit, which has just a little bit more of this tufted stitch for his tail  .
  It's all good practice !