Diamond Jubilee Embroidery

This is my way of commemorating Queen Elizabeth’s Diamond Jubilee – French DMC floss on a disassembled Target organic pillow case to be reassembled at some later date.  I know she’s not my queen, but I couldn’t resist, not after I rediscovered that gorgeous crown pattern in an old set of transfer patterns that once belonged to my mother-in-law, Darlene.  I figured it would be so much easier than knitting QE II and her corgis from the patterns in this book and of course, a pillow case is actually functional whereas a small knitted queen and her dogs is not (for most people, I presume).

Now this kind of embroidery doesn’t have to take a long time if you have your colors and stitches all worked out before you start.  I didn’t, so I ended up working these things out as I went along and the embroidery took a bit longer than I expected. I’m pretty happy with the results though.  I’m not even sure that I mind that the bottom line and banner seem to have drifted off-center from my initial sketch.

Moving from the top of the embroidery down, I used backstitch, chain stitch, french knots, satin stitch and outline stitch.  I used a silver metallic thread (polyester, DMC made in Belgium) for the interior and top of the crown.  I already mentioned that the crown inspired this embroidery, but so did my Royal Wedding Jan Constantine mug (see it here, along with a fantastic whole wheat cookie recipe).

I used a piece of tracing paper and a pencil to trace the crown onto the paper and then added writing and a banner.  Then I used some Dritz wax-free tracing paper between my fabric and my design on paper, and I went over the tracing paper design again with pencil to transfer the design from the yellow Dritz paper to the fabric.

I originally thought I might embroider two small crowns on either side of the large one, but I’m leaning against that now. Look how the crown sparkles in this photo …

About these ads