Family Feature Friday! #1

Hi everyone!  Thanks for tuning in to this week's Adventures in Embroidery post!  This week, I'm going to do something a little different.  It's always so neat to find new ways to connect with family members, and embroidery has really opened up a new avenue for me to do that!  I've really enjoyed being able to talk embroidery with different family members!  My Granny Sharon (my grandmother) recently gave me some of my Mamaw's (my great-grandmother) embroidery work, so I thought it would be fun to share her work with you!

All of the pieces that I'll be sharing today are table runners - some longer, some shorter - but all beautiful! I love all of the floral motifs and looking at the different stitches that my Mamaw used.  In the piece pictured above, she used mostly blanket stitch.  I haven't tried this stitch out before, but I really like the way it creates such clean lines.

As you can probably tell from just looking at this picture, Mamaw used cross stitches to create the roses and leaves and stem stitch for the stems.  The large size of the cross stitches really give this piece some fun character.  Something not pictured here on the other side of this piece (I've got it folded in half to better fit in the frame) is that it looks like she ran out of the brown thread she was using for the stems, so she switched to green for the last two flowers!  It's probably my favorite part of this table runner.  It reminds me that as perfect as my Mamaw is, even she had to improvise sometimes, and that it's okay to change things up unexpectedly in art!  With embroidery (and with a lot of other things in my life!), I sometimes find myself getting caught up with making sure everything is exactly the way it is *supposed* to be.  But as I get older, and get more into artsy things, I have started to realize that sometimes, you just have to go with the flow of things - because nothing is perfect!

This next piece is really fun because upon closer inspection, I can see where Mamaw got a little creative with her stitches! There are places with some random satin stitches thrown in among the stem stitches.  I wonder what she was thinking when she did that - I should ask her the next time I see her!  I also love how flowy and natural the flowers look.  The little bouquets in the middle remind me of how my wedding bouquet looked - wild and naturally beautiful.

This last piece looks like she definitely had some experience under her belt when she made this! Lots of color, lots of detail, and super clean lines!  There are so many different stitches in this: long and short, stem, straight, running, lazy daisy, satin, and french knots! Pretty much all of the stitches I know combined seamlessly into one gorgeous piece!  I love the way the red of the poppy just *pops* off of the fabric (I know, so corny - I couldn't help myself!).  

I hope you enjoyed this stroll down memory lane with me!  I sure had fun!  I was thinking - since I have so many women in my family that have various embroidery and embroidery-related skills - I might make this a periodic installment here on Adventures in Embroidery!  What better way to get inspiration than from the people that you love the most?  Let me know what you think down in the comments!

I hope you all have a splendid week! See you next time!