Embroidered birthday card with texture
The challenge I set myself this year for my sister's birthday card was to create a textured coat with an astrakhan-type collar on one of Kate Greenaway's little children.
New features in my embroidery software allowed me to do this. It has been fun to see what I could create, using several coloured threads blended together to form the fabric.
There is a beautiful simplicity to the artwork of Kate Greenaway and I have long admired it, intending to digitise some embroidery designs from it. Born in 1846, Catherine Greenaway was a children's illustrator educated at the Royal Female School of Art. I think it is the style of dressing the children in her watercolours that I find fascinating.
I adore the mop caps, bonnets, pinafores and ribbons, which reflect the Regency period — styles I am particularly interested in. Apparently Liberty’s of London created some children’s clothes inspired by these well-dressed little people. There is movement, fun and a little naughtiness in her children.
I decided to create individual designs from these remarkable images; my first design captures a little girl sitting on a fence. I particularly love her hat — sad that fashion no longer demands we wear such creations every day.
After experimenting I found that her facial features were sharper when stitched in a 60 wt thread, so I recommend Mettler cotton 651 Cobblestone. You can see the difference in this earlier stitch-out, although the light is not as good. I have also seen the image with a rose-coloured flower on the hat; that gives a different look, and lighter coloured hair could also be considered.
To capture as much detail as possible I did not limit the design to 4" x 4", and I managed to find a card with a square aperture so I could make a birthday card for my sister.
I kept the colours of the original artwork as much as possible and used my usual system of inserting the finished embroidery into the card. My pressing board with its lines enables me to line everything up perfectly; the lines show through my silk dupion fabric.
The finished card just did not have the “wow” factor, so I added a little lace daisy at each corner and a turquoise pearl on the flower of the hat.
This was just enough — I am sure these little people had no embellishment on their clothes!
(This blog was originally posted on my old website in 2018)