1920's & 30's redwork turned felt needlecase!

PART 3
This is the final follow-up post to my original 1920's / 30's redwork adapted from actual catalog photos.

I decided to make some felt needle cases for two of my daughters for Christmas.  The other two daughters will have to get theirs next year, as these took some considerable time stitching. 



 

One of the funnest things about doing these, is that both of them look so much like the daughter I gave them too.  I am excited to do the other two as well, for the same reason. Another fun aspect of making these needle books was that I could see the vintage 19020's & 1930's drawings just come to life. 

 

Each of these needle cases measure about 4 1/2" x about 3", have 2 wool felt sheets inside, and have a back in either blue or yellow with no extra embellishment.  These were also made with a wool blend felt purchased on Etsy from shoppe3130.  Her felt selection is by far the highest quality that I have found so far, very thick & soft ~  as well as a fantastic color selection.  And, her prices are pretty reasonable, as well. 

My next post will showcase some of the felt foods I have been busy creating this winter, as well as my newly re-opened Etsy shop ~ My Current Obsession.

Free 1920's redwork or line art embroidery patterns Part 2

Part 2 :  Drawing the patterns

One of the easiest ways to achieve success with these vintage pictures is to use the picture itself as a basis for your line art.  So, as you saw in part one, you first take a picture of the desired design, using the macro setting on your camera.  This allows you to use even the tiniest of catalog pictures.  And even if they are on quite dark newsprint, you can play a few tricks.  

In this first pic, you can see how I chose to outline  with a very dark ink pen, the very most basic lines, and then, since these were printed on very dark newsprint, I also needed to lighten the pics up.  This is the same pic, lightened.

 

 

And here, you can see the final result.  Unfortunately, I kind of messed up a bit on the final line drawing, & I will redo it later, but for the sake of this post, it stays as is. ;-D

And here are the rest of the patterns for these hats.  If you copy them or use them, please link back to me, & please, I am not charging you to get them, don't you be selling the patterns to others. ;-D

 

 

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.