The members of our embroidery guild are embroidering baby quilts as a fund-raising project. The quilts are made out of flannel in baby colors and designs. Right now, the guild ladies are finishing up their blocks so that the quilts can be assembled. When they’re finished, I think they’re going to be really cute! So I thought I’d share a couple photos of one of the blocks for now and tell you a little bit of how we’re going about it, and I’ll show the completed quilts and other blocks when they’re turned in.
The first quilt block is an embroidered Little Dutch Girl, done in pinks rather than blues. The embroidered squares for the baby girl quilt are pink quilter’s flannel (with the nap of the flannel on one side, smooth on the other). Most of the ladies used Solvy to transfer the designs, which is better, I think, than using the blue transfer pens, although some did use those, too. I’ve heard a lot of horror stories lately about blue transfer pens!
The stitching is all done in simple stitches. Here, the majority of the stitching is stem stitch, with a few straight stitches thrown in here and there. You can see a version of Algerian Eye on the skirt (six-pointed). You can see the Solvy in the photo. It’ll be removed before squaring up the blocks.
Here’s a close-up on her little embroidered cape, which is worked in two strands of DMC in stem stitch. She did a really nice, precise job with her stem stitch!
The skirt is detailed with these little six-pointed Algerian Eyes. You can see the permanent marker on the Solvy behind the stitches. This will rinse out when the Solvy is dissolved.
Here’s the waste-line of the little dress, worked in stem stitch. I like the selection of colors – the light pinks and dark pinks for the dress. It’s just so… girly!
What embroidered Little Dutch Girl would be complete without embroidered tulips? Here’s her little face, with pointed nose, and little purple tulips.
And some blonde hair in a little pony tale to top it off, with a little pink bow.
The ladies are doing a great job on their squares – most of the members of our little group are beginners, but they’re starting to “branch out” and take on challenging projects, which is great to see! We’re lucky to have a great group of talented and devoted ladies! It’s such fun!
We’re going to be raffling a boy’s quilt and a girl’s quilt to raise funds for future projects. I’ll let you know how it goes and I’ll post some pictures as the quilts go together.
I am working on a white on white piece and in the process of working out the construction details I found that I actually like using the blue transfer pen to draw the design onto the Solvy. I had some unfortunate residue with using a fine tip (black) sharpy and found that this combination washed out completely. The contrast probably wouldn’t be high enough for blues or darker however.
I was wondering if you could tell me where I could find the pattern for this little Dutch girl. I’ve looked everywhere online, but I couldn’t find it. Thanks!
Hi – if you e-mail me, I’ll e-mail you a copy, if I still have it on my computer! You can reach me at mary[at]needlenthread.com
Thanks!
MC