...Vintage Embroidery...W.I.P. Wednesday...

...this little project comes with quite a long history...

...many (many, many) years ago...when I was about 8 or 9 years old...I was in 4-H...if you're not familiar with it...it's a youth organization...and I loved it...we knew the leader quite well...she and her sweet family went to our Church and lived across the river from us...

...anywhoo...one summer about that time...we had a 'crafty' meeting and I received this kit...

...exactly like this one...I know...the internet is amazing...

...I did a search for "little girl Amen embroidery"...and found this...

...I was so amazed...it's exactly what I remember...

...and apparently there was a "little boy Amen" version as well...

...so...back to the story...

...that summer when I got home with my kit...I remember taking a chair out into the yard and separating the threads and reading the chart...

...but having absolutely no experience reading embroidery charts...and apparently being too stubborn to ask for any help...

...I resolutely started embroidering...but I mistakenly read the "x" on the chart and started embroidering the border in dk pink...obviously thinking I was soooo smart...

...now the pattern's cover photo was (and still is) in black and white...and a colour photo would have been quite helpful...

...but I had separated my threads and embroidered to the end of one and then another...but because there was not that much dk pink in the 'real' pattern...I quickly ran out of thread...

...so then I did seek guidance from my Mom...and she was so sympathetic...you see I should have been using dk aqua for the border...and there was, of course, plenty of dk aqua thread for the border...but my sweet Mama seeing how much work I had done already...and seeing the tears welling up in my eyes...sweetly offered to get more pink thread to let me finish the border in pink...

...tears were actually shed...and I was so very frustrated...Mom explained how the chart worked...and I realized then that there were actually x's all over the printed linen...not just in the border...I had thought that the symbol on the chart would change on the linen to match the chart...and in my haste to start the project had not really looked at the rest of the printed linen...if I had...of course I would have realized might have realized that the x on the chart did not correspond to an x on the linen...

...well...I'm sorry to say...that I never finished the project...in any colour...

...but thanks to the miracle of the internet...I am able to complete one for my granddaughter...

...it's really a simple little project...accomplished a thread at a time...

...completed...washed and blocked...

...pressed from the back with a damp cloth...

...I'm by no means a master of embroidery...the back of my work is definitely not presentable...

...but the front turned out very sweet...

...sorry I didn't get a better photo of it framed...I'll get one later when it's on the wall of a sweet little girl's nursery...

...and that's the end of the story...

~Have a lovely day!