Sunday, January 13, 2013

Vintage Embroidery Patterns

By coincidence, a student brought me some vintage embroidery patterns that had been her mother's- refugees from a general household clean-up and declutter - the same day I came prepared to demonstrated brush embroidery. The students were enthusiastic about the technique, while I couldn't wait to see if I could put these patterns to use.

My first idea was to lay the image on the clay - a platter in this case, made just minutes before - and trace the lines with a blunt tool. That worked, sort of, but the paper is unbelievably fragile, and kept tearing. I hadn't read the directions - oh hell no, who has time for that? - or I would have already known what I discovered next: the blue lines of the image are water soluble, intended as a press-on transfer. Like this:


Next I drew over the faint blue image - if you look close you can see it - with the slip trailer, and used the stiff brush as in the brush embroidery video.

There are a world of embroidery transfer patterns out there, both vintage and current, but once I have used these - mostly in class, probably - I am interested in if you could do something similar with a water-soluble marker, and make your own.

Maybe we'll try it in class this week.

6 comments:

Sue Pariseau Pottery said...

Holy smokes. I must have thrown away several hundred of those when I cleaned out my mom's house. Never occurred to me to use them with clay.

Lori Buff said...

Next time put packing tape on the top side of the paper. It will make it stronger so you can re-draw your image easier.

Lori Watts said...

Lori - that is a great idea! Just in time for class tonight. Thanks.

June Perry said...

What a fantastic idea. I spent all morning looking at these on ebay; and saved a bunch of photos for some ideas for sgraffito for the earthenware. I just loved those 40's and 50's designs - reminded me of all the embroidered pillow cases and handkerchiefs my maiden aunt Francie made. Wish I had save some of those!

June Perry said...

What a fantastic idea. I spent all morning looking at these on ebay; and saved a bunch of photos for some ideas for sgraffito for the earthenware. I just loved those 40's and 50's designs - reminded me of all the embroidered pillow cases and handkerchiefs my maiden aunt Francie made. Wish I had save some of those!

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