Tuesday, February 12, 2008

Morning's Glory

This tea towel was one I stitched and sent to a friend for a swap sometime last year. I was excited to try the coloring technique as an addition to embroidery, as I had never done it before. It's actually quite simple. After the outline is drawn onto the fabric, take a children's color crayon and lightly color or shade the design as desired. Then take a place of clean paper and place it over the design and then apply gentle heat with a warm iron. This will fuse the color into the fabric. Once that is done, use embroidery stitches as desired to make the outline of the design.
By the way, I love morning glories! I know that they are sometimes considered 'weeds', but they are pretty when they are in the right spot! They weave here and there around objects in their pathway, creating gentles curves and lovely curliques. Instead of a weed, I claim them as a wildflower. I've even discovered the domestic version for my home garden. Each year I plant several different colors of morning glory's along the dog kennel. The abundant green growth provides a lovely shade for the dogs during the heat of the summer (although they don't spend much time in the kennel, as they are really house dogs). The colors of the morning glory blossoms are mixed together, as I usually plant vibrant pink, pale blue, white, and purple seeds. It's always fun to observe the amount of 'openness' they have during a twenty-four hour period. They close their blossoms up tight for the night and gently open their faces to the sunshine in the early morning. As the evening shadows fall, their faces close up for a good night's rest. A good lesson for us all.

12 comments:

  1. Beautiful! I love it. I might have to try that technique with the crayons. It really adds something special to the embroidery work. And I, for one, do not believe that Morning Glories are weeds. Nope. They are delicate and beautiful and one of my favorites.

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  2. Oh thank you for sharing that tip. I will certainly be giving that a try. Your embroidery is exquisite!

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  3. Anonymous8:19 AM

    Hi La Tea Dah,
    How pretty. I love the coloring part. I am so ready for spring.
    Thank for sharing,
    Hugs,
    Elizabeth

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  4. Anonymous9:34 AM

    What a pretty towel! I've never heard of the coloring technique you described but it certainly turned out well.

    I remember the morning glories that used to grow along and through the bushes and hedges on our farm. They seemed to wander everywhere. This brings up fond memories.

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  5. In the summer, there's a patch of exquisite purple morning glories along my favorite walking route--the farthest thing from a weed I can imagine! I think if I were a flower, I'd be one of them, at my best early in the morning and ready for bed when the sun goes down.

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  6. That is a lovely tea towel and inpsiring! Thank you.

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  7. Thank you for sharing the technique. I will definitely try it. What a nice swap gift!

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  8. You do such lovely work with your stitching. I've never ever stitched a tea towel. I always think I'm not careful enough to do a nice job. Maybe I've matured enough to be patient and when I see your work .. it's a bit inticing to consider giving it a try.

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  9. Your Morning Glory tea towel is so sweet. What a great idea to plant it around the dog kennel. Maybe when it blooms you'll have to have a photo for us....

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  10. I love Morning glories and DO NOT consider them weeds....I have grown them many times..I start with germinating them on wet batting....then they just take off when put in the ground...bahhhh..humbug to anyone who thinks they are weeds....
    Deby

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  11. That was the one kind thing I can remember about my step dad who adopted me at 6 yrs of age. He called me Morning Glory. He would say good morning glory to me sometimes if he was in a good mood.

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  12. Very pretty embroidery! We planted some beautiful blue ones along our dog's kennel once. I thought it was a Great idea! :-)

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