The twenty leaves I set out to stitch for the Leaf Sampler stitch along have been waiting to be made up into a cushion cover. And finally, it's finished! You can read more about the SAL in previous blog posts by clicking on the links below.
Leaf SAL- Up and Down Buttonhole Stitch
Pentas, Embroidery and Caterpillars
To complete the embroidery, I added my initials and date, as well as "Covid-19" as a record that I stitched it during lockdown of this topsy-turvy year. I disguised the lettering a little by surrounding it with a leaf shape. It's rather squished in but then the leaves are supposed to be scattered randomly anyway. Aren't they?
I framed the leaves with a row of stem stitch. Then I carefully washed out the blue disappearing ink I'd used liberally to mark the lines, and the spacing of some of the more tricky stitches.
I didn't want to iron the stitches flat. Instead, once the embroidery was dry I pinned it onto a cork board, making sure it was square, and sprayed it with water to damp stretch it.
The chair the finished cushion stands on is rather special to me. It belonged to my grandmother. She lived in Kimberley, South Africa towards the end of the diamond rush. There she was chairman of the Women's Temperance Union and when the family left to go farming in Potchefstroom, she received a pair of chairs as a farewell gift from the members. This chair was rescued and painstakingly restored by my father very many years later.
I would love to have met my grandmother. She raised seven children, worked with my grandfather on their dairy farm, played the organ in church on Sunday, painted in oils, hand knitted socks, and every now and then would be asked to load her piano on the ox wagon, cross the river into town and provide the entertainment at the local fete!
I wonder what my grandmother would have said about her chair being shipped across the ocean and now standing in my entrance hall in Australia, far from it's original place at the table in the old farm kitchen.
'Till next time, I hope you are well, do keep safe and carry on stitching.
Love your cushion. That is an amazing chair, almost Binnehuis-like.
ReplyDeleteThanks Karen! It's a lovely piece of furniture - made of stinkwood and very heavy. I would love to have had both the carvers. This one has pieces added to the front legs. They wore away over the years from constantly being drawn up to the table across the stone floor. So much history there.
ReplyDeleteThanks for sharing the process of making this beautiful cushion, and the story of your grandmother and her chair. I am sure she is delighted to know how well you have kept her chair and what you now have placed upon it.
ReplyDeleteIt's interesting to me to learn about some of the background of a finished embroidery so I'm glad you enjoyed seeing some of the process behind my cushion.
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