Awesome Vintage Embroidery Pattern Site!

This morning I was browsing Pinterest (which is one of my favorite things to do!) and found a wonderful site for vintage embroidery patterns.  It's a Flickr site called Hoop Love Vintage Transfers and it's loaded with vintage transfer embroidery patterns!  You can find it here.  It's a member site and you need to have a Flickr account but it's easy to join and worth it if embroidery is your thing.

The site is specific to vintage patterns from companies that are no longer in business.  So patterns from Aunt Martha and Vogart are not allowed but there are so many -- over 7,600! -- patterns that are absolutely adorable.  Here is small a sampling: 

You can see where my heart lies with these images, but there are so many patterns to choose from:  floral, folk, alphabets, cross stitch, borders and more!

These patterns are perfect for baby blankets and clothes, bibs and aprons, tea towels, pillowcases and sheets, hankies, tablecloths and hot pads,  just about anything that could use a little handmade love and color!

Check out this site if you want to explore the mother load of vintage embroidery transfer patterns!

More Free Vintage Cross Stitch Charts!

Oh happy day!  I found more adorable vintage cross stitch charts to share!  Love love love these!  These designs come from various vintage pattern books but the themes are pretty similar.  These, like the last patterns, didn't have a color chart so you can choose the colors you like best

These little chefs would be a perfect finishing touch to the hem of a kitchen towel or on the pocket of an apron:

Here are a couple of simple designs that could be put together relatively quickly:

Classic themes:

This is priceless!

Adorable children worked in an easy backstitch pattern:

My source for these vintage patterns was the Antique Pattern Library.  This is a great site, by the way.  I'm on the prowl for more classic, vintage patterns to share!  Stitch on!

Free Vintage French Cross Stitch Patterns

These vintage cross stitch charts come from an old French pattern book, one of a series.  The book features the color plates without listing floss colors, so you can pick the colors you like best.

Most of the plates are a readable size, but you might want to enlarge them for easier reading.

The imagery would look lovely cross stitched onto a sampler or other textiles.  Enjoy these free patterns!

Children's Motifs for Cross Stitch or Filet Crochet

Just like I promised, here are some more vintage cross stitch or filet crochet patterns from some of my wonderful vintage pattern books circa 1920s.  These adorable patterns were originally designed for a handmade rug and a child's chair cover, but they could be used for any number of things.  They are mostly animal motifs and remind me of a circus theme and I have to say, they're pretty dang cute!  Here you go:

Monkey:

Bear:

Duck:

Puppy dog:

Elephant:

 Boys:

Flower motif:

Girls:

Kitty cat: 

Pony or horse:

 Deer:

Sheep:

Stork:

Alphabet:

These vintage animal and alphabet patterns would look great incorporated into a baby's sampler, stitched onto a baby bib, filet crocheted onto a baby pillow, you could cross stitch onto a gingham dress or toddler's apron.  Really, there are so many things you could do with these cute, retro cross stitch or filet crochet patterns.  Have fun stitching!

Free Simple Vintage Cross Stitch Patterns

Like I promised, here are more vintage cross stitch patterns from my vintage pattern book collection.  These are simple, easy patterns that should come together quickly and can be done in your favorite colors of choice or in monochrome.  If crochet is your thing, these can also be used for filet crochet just as the first pattern indicates.

In honor of Easter, the first pattern has some really cute little bunnies that would look adorable on baby's bib:

Love the little gnomes in the center of this pattern page and the roosters at the bottom!  What a great motif for kitchen towels:

Here are a few simple corner patterns for napkins or small pillows:

Dainty little floral patterns would look lovely on a baby's yoke dress, either cross stitched or filet crochet:

 Stay tuned, coming up next, more vintage color plates for cross stitch embroidery!

Vintage 1959 Girl Scout Fabric vs. 2010 Robert Kaufman Girl Scout Fabric

As a diehard, green-blooded Girl Scout, I have been a collector of vintage Girl Scout memorabilia for years.  And as a seamstress and designer, anything to do with fabric gets my attention.  So you can imagine my delight when I acquired some yardage of the original vintage Girl Scout fabric produced in 1959.  This fabric is what the Robert Kaufman Girl Scout fabric released in 2010 was based on.

This photo is the vintage1959 Girl Scout fabric:

And here is the Robert Kaufman 2010 Girl Scout fabric:

The two fabric designs are very similar with some imagery duplicated, other imagery slightly modified.  Overall, it's almost the same design.  In this example, the vintage 1959 fabric is on the left; the 2010 image on the right is crisper and slightly smaller, but otherwise the same:

Here the hiking girls are the same, except that now the blond is a redhead.  The border colors have changed too, but the new fabric has retained the hand-stitched style outlining of the old fabric:

The 2010 Girl Scout fabric (on the left) better represents the diversity of the organization's membership:

Here, Robert Kaufman 2010 Girl Scout fabric is on the right:

One thing that isn't visible to the naked eye is that the older, 1959 Girl Scout fabric is a slightly thicker cotton, not quite a barkcloth but definitely thicker than quilt weight cotton.

The vintage 1959 Girl Scout fabric and the Robert Kaufman 2010 fabric are both charming, and the imagery is as delightful today as it was 54 years ago!  I'm so happy to have both of these wonderful fabrics in my collection..... time to get stitching!

Go Girl Scouts!  

Free Apron Patterns

There is just something charming about aprons.  Just looking at them brings back warm memories of delicious smells coming from the kitchen.  Yesterday I was looking through a vintage sewing pattern book and found the patterns for these two little sweethearts.  The vintage pattern book isn't dated but the designs look very 1930s to me.

As you can see from the description, the directions call for the aprons to be made with oil cloth, but any pretty cotton fabric will do.  You'll have to do a little drafting to enlarge the pattern, but it's pretty straight forward after that.

This half apron would be perfect for either crafts or gardening.  The appliqué is charming and you could embroider a cute design on any of them for a personalized look.

One of the things that I love about my large vintage pattern book collection is discovering the treasures within.  So many of them are from a thrifty time, this one from the 1930s is a prime example.  "Make Do or Do Without," as the saying goes.  Enjoy making aprons from these vintage apron patterns, they'll look just as good today as they did then!