Vintage Embroidery Transfers - 'For the Birds'

A fun thing happened in my 'blog-world' a couple of weeks ago.

Patty at Pip Stitch linked to the vintage embroidery transfers that I posted here and here in February. A couple of days later, an Israeli blog named Friendstitch, (written in French) linked to them, as well. Over the next few days, people from all over the world were visiting those posts!

I am a believer in the 'paying it forward' school of thought, and I have benefited greatly from the generosity of other bloggers from the very beginning of this journey. (Dearest Sister, particularly!)

I had no idea that so many people would be interested in the designs, but I realized that if I added the transfers to my

Flikr album, it would be easier for others to download and enjoy them. I added them to my photo stream and to the Hoop Love vintage embroidery pool.

One of the members of the Hoop Love group commented, and identified them as Betty Burton designs. I went through the group of transfers again, and I found this envelope and additional pages!

(After a little research, I found more information about Betty Burton transfers, here. )

The additional pages connected some of the dots regarding the motifs. There were more nursery rhymes to go with the Jack and Jill, and other themes, such as animals, 'baby' and 'His and Hers', etc.

Today, I am sharing some of the bird designs:

I love the cute tam on this ducklings head!

This little chick must have something to crow about!

I think this birdie is the quintessential symbol of spring!

I think this one is my favorite! It makes me think of a elementary school art project with pipe cleaner legs glued to a board and maybe a Styrofoam head with paper beak and 'dunce cap'(?)

I haven't added these to the Flikr pool, yet. I need to upgrade my account to be able to add more photos. I hope to get that done in the next day or two, though, so I can share these and the others, as I get them scanned.

It was really fun to have so many people from around the globe visit my blog, but the best part was being able to share something unique. The thought that those transfers were sitting in a box or on a shelf for so many decades (my grandmother died in the late 1940's)and now they are enjoyed by people around the world makes me really happy!

Vintage Embroidery Patterns - Part II

This is the rest of the patterns from the vintage sheet. I must confess an error, though. When I went back to the pattern sheet, I realized it is marked Serial No. 1944. I suppose it could be from that year, but I think it could be earlier. The only other marks are "made in U.S.A.". The motifs are not all related, but there are a couple of themes. Curiously, one motif seems to be Jack and Jill, but that is the only nursery rhyme one, unless the rest are from some of those 'lesser known' rhymes...


Is there a rhyme about a monkey pushing a drunk clown in a cart?

I apologize for the shoddy work on cleaning these up. But, I have other 'cleaning' obligations, currently!

Edited to add: These designs can be found in my Flikr set here.

Vintage Embroidery Patterns

This weekend, I have been concentrating on getting the house ready for guests and a party in three weeks. I only have four weekend days left, before the event, so I have a list of things that I want to get done by the end of each weekend.

This weekend, the goal was to get the guest rooms ready. The main guest room doesn't usually take much to get ready for visitors. We don't use it for anything else, so just clean linens was all it needed.

The upstairs guest room is a different story! During my vacation a couple of weeks ago, A and I went through a lot of the boxes, so there is more room, but there were dregs of all that sorting that needed to be taken care of.

The third guest room will be my studio -which tends to be the place that things go, when I don't know where else to put them. So, lots of organizing, condensing, sorting, etc will be necessary before I can offer it to anyone as accommodation. On the one hand, I enjoy the opportunity to re-acquaint myself with the contents of various boxes and storage totes. But about six dozen ideas for projects came to mind while I was going through things!

It was quite a chore to keep focus on the task at hand!

MUST. NOT. START. ANYTHING!

So, I decided to share some embroidery patterns with you. These were on a sheet that came from my grandmother's sewing things. It is marked 1944, but I don't know who issued it. It is a transfer, so they are made to be reversed.

I hope you had more fun that I did, this weekend!

(These designs can be found in my Flikr set here.)