Hand Embroidery

Sunday night I was able to finished embroidering this pillowcase which shows 2 bluebirds in a nest. The design came from some old Workbasket magazines that I had gotten at a yard sale long ago that I took all the embroidery transfers out. So a vintage embroidery design that was stitched in 2014!

My husband took the photo and did the photo manipulation so it looks a bit brighter than it really is and the one detail that I was most proud of doesn't show up very well. I had managed by manipulating the colors of embroidery floss to make the tree branch rounded looking by doing dark on the edges and building up to a lighter brown on the top and it gave the optical illusion of a round branch. I used both DMC embroidery floss and DMC pearl cotton in the design.

I enjoyed trying out some different techniques and stitches on this pillowcase. Since they will probably never be used at the same time, with the other pillowcase that I already have stamped I will be using some more different stitches and techniques. I just bought this book Embroidered Embellished which has some interesting different embroidery stitches and ways to use them so I will be using it for inspiration.