28 June 2010

eat your veggies

Or, maybe I should say, embroider them :)

If you're also a reader of my Primrose Design blog you may have seen that I'm working on quilted patchwork pot holders with food themes. I've run out of vintage linens to cut up so I'm embroidering some of the motifs myself. Today I showed some examples of peas and carrots that I found originally on a vintage apron; there was a yellow squash, too. And I decided to offer the patterns for free here at Stitch School in case you'd like to try them for yourself.

Each of the designs would be super cute on aprons as they appeared originally or perhaps on tea towels or framed pictures on your kitchen wall. All are super easy and shouldn't take more than an hour. No need to trace these onto to your fabric—just count the stitches for your cross stitch and do them first, then go back and freehand draw the stem/outline stitched parts. I used an even-weave linen/cotton blend (from an old tea towel) but you could use Aida if you like.

Click each photo for a larger version on my Flickr page.

peas embroidery

peas pattern

carrot embroidery

carrot pattern

yellow squash embroidery

yellow squash pattern

5 comments:

Beansieleigh said...

Oh, I love these! I think they'd be cute on potholders too! Thank you for sharing the patterns! ~tina

Mr Buttons said...

how did you make the cross stitch diagramms? I have some hand-made vintage cross stitch trims I was gonna share... I did it in word with Xs, but it looks distorted.

janet said...

Mr. Buttons, I did these in Photoshop. I usually scan the piece that I want to make a pattern from, then work over the top of it on a transparent layer. Once you have one cross done, you just copy and paste it as many times as you need to. The embroidered parts are drawn with the pen or pencil tool. Once you've finished with the top layer, you just delete the original background scan.

I have a graphic design background so this may make perfect sense to me but not to someone who doesn't use Photoshop. I sometimes work in Illustrator, too. Hopefully you'll know what I'm talking about :)

Anonymous said...

I love these and think I will give them a try now that I have found some time this summer! :) I think you could make that yellow squash into a purple eggplant too for your potholders ;)
Thanks for your awesome blogs again---always love seeing what you're making, your photos and the occasional recipe that pops up!
-Bailey

Unknown said...

Foarte dragute, am sa le incerc si eu.
Julieta din Romania