Back in 2014, I was doing an online embroidery course that involved adding embroidery etc to vintage hankies and then joining the hankies together to make a cloth. Well, I did embellish a few hankies, but didn't do enough to create a cloth (I moved straight onto the next course) so the 'finished' hankies have been sitting in a box waiting to be used. I was having a look through my old pieces and came across the hankies and decided I could reuse them to make lavender pillows.
I've started with the first two hankies that I'd finished in 2014 (you can see them on this old blog post) and the photos below show the first of the completed lavender pillows.
I've added some more embellishment to the hanky, as it was going to be used as a stand alone piece rather than just a part of a larger piece. So the ric rac, buttons, lace heart and satin flower are all new additions. Along with the detachable vintage 'Mother' brooch (I thought the pillow would make a lovely Mother's Day present).
I stitched the hanky onto white cotton and then backed it with more of the white cotton to create the pillow. It was then filled with stuffing and dried lavender flowers.
This pillow has gone to the Seagrass Gallery in West Kirby, but the second of the two pillows is nearly finished and I'll be adding that one to my Etsy shop.
I hope you have a lovely weekend, and I'll be back with week 10's #our52weekproject post on Monday.
TTFN
Louise
These first photos are of hanky five, before and after the embroidery has been added.
These next three photos show hanky six before the embroidery is carried out.
TTFN
Louise
Hanky 3 is a new one that is printed with flowers, and I don't want to cover these up, if possible, so I'm adding lace in the spaces or using see-through lace. So far, the only embroidery is the pekinese stitch that I've used to attach the line of see-through lace.
Hanky 4 is a new hanky as well, but the cotton it's made from is quite fine. I've done more work on this one. There's a suffolk puff with pools of french knots; a corner of a vintage hanky attached with chain stitch; flower lace attached with backstitch and I've started a line of bullion loops along the edge of the pink lace.
There's still plenty more to do on these hankies.
TTFN
Louise
I've finished the embroidery on hankies one and two. They've also been damp-stretched (they were on the damp-stretching board when I photographed them, hence all the pins). As the hankies will be mounted onto the top of a backing fabric I didn't want any holes from damp-stretching on the actual hankies so a basted pieces of cotton around the edges to put the pins in.
TTFN
Louise
