Playful Freehand Embroidery

As I’ve mentioned, this summer was probably the busiest summer season I’ve ever had. Because of this, I was not able to work on as many creative projects as I usually would. However, there was one little project I had been thinking about for a while. A year or so ago, my brother gave me plain white cotton tea towels as a gift to do some sort of project with. I had a couple ideas and did a little brainstorming in my art notebook. I ended up creating two designs and freehand embroidering them.

I like the idea of herbs being used in kitchen decor, which reminded me of a little joke from a Beatrix Potter book. A fox invites poor Jemima Puddle-duck to dinner and asks if she would supply the herbs from the kitchen garden, “Sage and thyme, and mint and two onions, and some parsley.” And Jemima is such a simpleton that “she goes around the farm-garden, nibbling off snippets of all the different sorts of herbs that are used for stuffing roast duck”! The story ends happily, so I wanted to show the humorous moment when oblivious Jemima has collected all her herbs.

For the second design, I thought about some of the things I enjoy in my kitchen the most. When someone says “my favorite dish”, they are probably talking about a meal they enjoy. If I say it, there would be a better chance I would be talking about the china you eat the meal on! I love pretty dishes, old china, vintage colored Pyrex, milk glass mixing bowls, glass pitchers with decorative etchings and paintings, etc. I picked a particularly striking dish I have which would have lots of interesting details and colors to model as “my favorite dish.”

To get the lettering right for each of these, I used a workbook I have for hand lettering. I wrote what I wanted first with a brush pen on scrap paper and then copied it as best as I could in thread on the tea towel.

For both these designs, I did just a very loose sketch of part of the design, Jemima and the circular outline of the dish. Everything else was freehand. I think if I had taken the time to draw the full design on the fabric, it might have turned out a little neater or better proportioned, but it also felt nice to do something less structured and work as I went. I generally prefer to follow patterns (and adjust if needed) in my creative works, but sometimes it’s good to release that and just move quickly and try things for the fun of it!

Not strictly freehand, but another embroidery I’ve been working on this month is finishing a project someone else had started. The picture on the left is how I received the project (minus the skeins of embroidery floss which I gathered from my stash and tried to match as best as I could with what she had already used). There were no indications of precise colors or instructions for stitches, etc. There were pencil outlines on the linen and a pattern on wax paper. I believe the design was original to the woman who started it. She was a local artist in a variety of mediums. I’m not quite finished yet, but I’m liking the progress I’ve made so far and I’m excited to put this up in my art room when finished!