Wednesday, September 9, 2009

Freaky Frog Vintage Embroidery Pattern

Ah, back to basics. Like embroidery. Like this freaky frog embroidery that is based on one of the vintage patterns that Kelly First scored at an estate sale and passed on to me:


That's the original pattern. Look at that freaky thing. He looks like he wants to slip you a roofied martini and take you back to his pad. (Get it? Like his lily pad.)

(Well, I thought it was funny.)

Anyway, because I wanted to preserve the original pattern, I didn't iron it on. Instead, I photocopied the pattern on our printer and then used the graphite method of transferring it to the napkin I wanted to embroider.


Have you done that graphite transfer thing? No? Here's how I did it: I cut out the pattern (very roughly), coated the back with a very soft drawing pencil. Then turned the pattern over onto the napkin and traced over it, which transferred the pattern.


It didn't leave a very heavy mark, so I went over it with my blue marking pen.

Then I embroidered it. It took about an hour to complete.

I like him. He's freaky.

2 comments:

Patty said...

I like his yellow eye. I haven't tried the graphite method yet but I read about it on someone else's blog and then forgot all about it. Thanks for the reminder!

Rosa said...

It's not a great transfer method--but fast and dirty works for me, too!