1920's & 1930's Redwork, or Turkey Red Work Part 1

Part 1 ~ Obtaining the images

If you have ever tried to search for quality, vintage & free embroidery images online ~ truly vintage, you know just how difficult it can be!
Ok, so these aren't actual redwork from the 1920's & 30's, because I couldn't find any that suited my taste exactly  ~  these are my own pictures from my collections of vintage catalogs & magazines, that you can copy & adapt for redwork.  In part 2 of this series, I will show you how to do this. (If you do copy these out or share them, pinterest, etc., please link back to me or mention my blog URL ~ I'd appreciate the courtesy.)


Here is how I did it.  First, I went through my catalogs & photographed in macro the images I thought would adapt well & that interested me ~ then I downloaded them to my computer, printed them out, and did the linework from there.  If you want them  in different sizes, just copy & paste the images to your own computer, print them, and take them to a print shop, where they can adjust the image size accordingly.

 In this post, I will show you a few of the images that I copied. (I actually took over 500 pics, so naturally, I won't be posting them all!) ;-D

I just love the innocence & purity of these old drawings! This selection will make an adorable quilt, wall hanging, or even ~ when sized down ~ really cute motifs for little felt cases or ipad covers or the like.  (Which is what I intend to do with them.)

Here is one where the work is almost done for you.  All that is required id a bit more simplifying, and voila! ~ you have your redwork outline pattern.

As to rest of these pics, a little more effort is required.  As you can see, the pics are a bit grainy when taken in such close proximity & macro-ed.  The original size of the pics are less than 1/2" high!

But, who could resist such adorable little works of art, especially when they look so much like my own daughters! 

 

These little black & white baby bonnets were also quite tiny to begin with, but they were almost a whole inch high, so you can see how that improved the quality of the pic.  However, in many cases, the old newsprint they were on was quite dark.  I suppose, however, that coming from original 1927 & 1932 catalogs, they have all survived remarkably well!

In part two of this series, I will show you the line drawings produced from each of these.  Again, I think a redwork quilt done in either the older girls hats or these precious baby bonnet heads would just be the cutest!  Can you see the colors? for the baby bonnets ~ dark brown binding, with baby pink squares, all handwork done in matching dark brown on top of baby pink, with pink satin rosettes in the bottom right hand corner.  Or, to be very vintage, either pink handwork sewn on blue background, or blue handwork sewn on pink background.

And for the older girl heads ~ wouldn't they just be adorable on bright orange, pink, green, yellow, etc, background fabrics, with all handwork done in black?

By the way, I also took several pics from my vintage catalogs of various fabrics available at the time  which show true vintage prints & colors, & I will post this in part three, along with a finished piece of work for an example.