Little by little, I’m stitching away at this 1978 Erica Wilson crewel embroidery kit. I thought the tree would never end, crisscrossing and outlining forever. But it was worth it to get to the owl.
It’s super groovy. Just wait until all the turkey work goes in. It’ll be a shag carpeting owl fest.
Who’s that, you ask? A fierce-looking owl, peering out of my 1978 Erica Wilson crewel embroidery kit. Yes, another kit. I just finished the wheat and flowers pillow, so I started another. I have hopes of doing my own design at some point, but these kits offer a lot as far as learning the ropes, or in this case a modified herringbone stitch that is really strange. I keep thinking it will start to look normal, but after many, many hours of stitching, it still looks very odd.
I did it! I finished this project, a 1973 crewel embroidery kit designed by Erica Wilson. And it wasn’t just a kit, it was a pillow kit. And I made a pillow!
It took many, many hours. I learned a lot about embroidery, and I remembered how much I love working with wool. And I figured how how to sew, kind of.
So the question now is will I be able to use this kind of groovy, vintagey, textured pillow? Yes, I love that 1970’s style. But I don’t imagine it will be at all a nap-able pillow. All those French knots and bullion stitches made out of scratchy wool would leave an interesting imprint on the side of your face.
I’ve nearly finished my vintage, 1973 Erica Wilson embroidery kit. It’s an amazing display of rusty- and mustard-colored wools in a wide range of stitches from French knots to satin stitch to the ever-so-cute bullion stitch, a great stand-in for wheat kernels.
I’ve only stitched a few small projects in the past, so I’m nearly starting from scratch with embroidery but I’m very taken with crewel embroidery. Perhaps I kept the tension too high on this as it’s full of hills and valleys once off the frame. But maybe it’ll smooth out after being blocked.
I loved working on the flowers.
Of course, I can’t be content with one little kit, so I gave myself a birthday present, a variety of Appleton crewel wool, some linen fabric, and a little package of needles. Aren’t the colors lovely?
I purchased all these lovely supplies from Kristin Nicholas, and I must say that everything was packed so nicely. I’m already sketching some ideas for my first design.
