Embroidered Doilies

 I blimmin’ love doilies.  I love the vintage look and charm and whether adding something quintessentially English to a cream tea, decorating cupcakes or adding a bit of pretty to a party, I'm a big fan [I'd take my lunch to work in them if I could.....actually, I can - right then - tomorrow!]

This past weekend, I had a little time in front of a film adding some embroidery to the centre of a few mini paper doilies I picked up from the supermarket to display on my wall for the love-fest that is February.

You can pretty much transfer any design on to the doily, but if you are using embroidery threads and needles, I’d recommend keeping the lines and pattern as simple as possible.  Detail will be lost as the stitches need to be kept at least 0.5cm long to prevent the paper from tearing, so keep this in mind when thinking about the text or design that you are going to embroider.  I kept it simple with a word, which I wrote free-hand on to a piece of scrap paper, but you can use text printed from the computer or from a magazine, book or anything else you can trace:

Place your doily over the text and either on a corkboard, cutting board or chopping board [anything you won’t damage], take a needle to trace the design by punching through the paper in increments along the lines:

Once you have completed the punching, remove and thread your needle.  Depending on your needle size and thread, you will need to measured in your stitching to a degree.  If the stitches are too close together, or too tight you may break the paper, so take your time and see what the needle will allow –I had to skip every second punched hole to make sure I could keep the lines but not rip the paper between the stitches:

Continue around your lines and once complete, secure at the back with a knot:

…and you’re done.  Stand back, admire and washi tape it to the wall:

…or cellotape from the back to a boardless frame to give a floating effect:

To add a bit of colour, I made two more to add to the collection:

see you next time x