Sunday 14 January 2007

Mum's embroidery




Typical - I don't post for a week, then have three in one day! Oh well - I wanted to share this with you. My mother stitched this just before she was married, which was in June 1939, just before the start of WWII. This is one of a set of three embroideries on linen. She said that she wrote away to a magazine for them - I think she said they were free, you just had to write in and ask, and they came with embroidery threads. The designs are printed on in blue - you might be able to just see the outline of the cloud - click on the picture for a bigger size view, it will be quite clear then. If you look closely, you will also see the faint outline of a third dove directly below the one in her hand - I don't know if Mum forgot to embroider that one, or decided it was a bit too busy, so left it out.

She has used buttonhole for the orangey flowers in the lower right hand corner, and for the lace down the back of the girl's dress and on the sleeves. The rest of the stitches are detatched chain, french knots, straight and stem.

The other two in the set are a fishing village scene with boats bobbing in the harbour - looks like Cornwall; and a typical thatched cottage set in a cottage garden with a path leading to the front door. I am glad there are three of them, as I have three daughters, so will leave one to each as a memento of their grandmother, Yvonne Messervy Barrett, 1919-2000.

Here is a photo of her and my father on their wedding day.
And here is the last photo I took of her, six months before she died, on New Year's Eve, 2000.


She was always sewing, embroidering, knitting, crocheting - Thanks Mum.

2 comments:

Digitalgran said...

That was a lovely post Hilary. I have my mother's old embroideries too Hilary and like yourself, have a lot to thank her for. She gave me my interest in all things creative.

Knittingand said...

Your mum's embroidery is wonderful. I just happen to have the magazine that it's from and it is indeed from 1939.

I can't scan it because it's bound into a book and it would break the binding, but I'd be happy to send you a photo of some relevant pages if you like.

My blog is at http://www.knitting-and.com if you'd like to contact me. :-)