My new love is absolutely embroidery. I took a class at the beginning of January to refresh my skills. I confess, I learned to embroider in girl scouts. Who can still say that? And I have been working on Sharon Wilhelm's Garden Sampler. It's almost done except for those maddening French knots. Now, I am working on Snow Days by Crabapple Hill. It's is so amazing. I even made my own light box. But. . .I ran across this post by Amy Barickman on her blog and had to share. . .
"Many times I’ve been asked how I get the ideas for my books, patterns or fabric lines? And the short answer is lots of places. My passion for seeking out vintage sewing treasures and collecting sewing books and ephemera has lead to many of my projects over the years. The Sew-it Book, Buttonware, Hankie Style andVintage Notions are just a few of the books that I have created based on inspiring vintage items I’ve found and collected.
Through my travels, I always seek out antique malls, galleries or flea markets to rummage through. Often, I see something beautiful that catches my eye – colors, fabric textures, the shear artistry of a piece or the details in the stitching. It may just be an old book filled with gorgeous illustrations.
Many times this stirs my creative juices and I combine the inspiration with current trends in the market to come up with a new book or pattern idea. Other times, I find a vintage piece and realize the concept or creation would be interesting to today’s consumer and feel the need to “rescue” it from obscurity.
One example is my latest embroidery book, A Stitch in Time with Mother Goose. This book of vintage embroidery designs, along with my coordinating fabric line from Red Rooster Fabrics of the same name, was inspired by a darling baby blanket I found during my travels. The quilt was created from an old Butterick transfers pattern circa 1920’s. I’ve also discovered in my collection the original magazine ad featuring the pattern for sale. Below are a few shots of the original blanket.
 |  |  |
I was toying already with the idea of creating a new embroidery book with a vintage feel and had some wonderful Mother Goose line art that I wanted to use, but the project had not yet come to fruition. I happened upon this hand embroidered baby blanket in bluework, along with the original vintage transfers and the entire project took shape.
Embroidery is really making a come back. The book includes 25 designs to be transferred to fabric and instructions for 7 different projects including two quilts. Here are just a few projects included in this book:
 |  |
Another method of embroidery can be done with just the Mother Goose fabric itself. Two of the fabric line coordinates are “cheater” blocks. These two panels – one in red and one in blue – have the Mother Goose line art already printed directly on the fabric. All one has to do it thread your needle and following the lines. No transfers needed."
Amy is doing a giveaway at her blog. Be sure to check is out.
