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 .

Rabbit ,Owl and French Knots

So next French Knots for the blue berries . . .I,m o.k. with the French Knot , but had to try very hard to get nice round berries .
 That yellow sunflower...it is not clear at all what colour the centre should be . The instructions say F2 which means French Knot in shade 2 but does not give the colour number. By looking at the colour photo of the finished project on the kit packet , it looks like the same colour as the dark stripes of the furry caterpillar... I'm still thinking about that , I,ll come back to it later on .
 The instructions say that the Squirrel is to be worked in grey and the Rabbit and Owl are to be worked in shades of earth brown .....however ..the Owl and Rabbit do look grey on the kit packet picture .  Husband thought grey, we even tried to think about the wild rabbits out in our meadow ....they are browny grey ...goodness..I spent too long thinking about this and decided to do as the kit instructions said .....

"Rabbit is to be worked in Long and Short Stitches of earth brown"  ...mine looks a bit different to the kit picture , because I got carried away trying to stitch in the natural  direction of the rabbit fur ..and then there was a little bit more of the dreaded Tufted Stitch for his tail .
While I,m here, see that little flower ,the one bunny is about to nibble ..it looks as if every single petal is a different shade of rose pink ! ..o.k. ..leave that one for another day !

 Owl . Earth brown Owl . How funny to do an Owl in French Knots . He is a very rare "Woolly Brown Owl"  .
I,ve certainly had some practice doing French Knots here ! Tell me ? They're not looking too bad are they ?
The Owl's eyes are grey Satin stitch with an earth brown French Knot in the centre .
The colours in this vintage kit are beautifully mellow .
I allowed myself to personalize it where the instructions were not clear . The only really naughty thing I did was to change the Owl's beak to yellow ! ... oh..and I worked the beak in two little Bullion Stitches ... On the kit picture it looks to have been just simply stitched with dark grey.
It does not give any colour nor stitch instructions  for stitching the Owl's beak on the " Directions for Embroidery #00078 " list ....I like to think that Elsa Williams just knew we'd all want to do that beak yellow !
 I think I can allow myself to do all the pretty Rose pink flowers next .
   Well after four days of drifting fog here on the Lizard , Cornwall , it looks as if the sun is trying to come out ..so I,m off to take the dog for a walk and maybe a little gardening this afternoon .  Wishing you a lovely day  x