Embroidered Hanky

I did this little piece for my lovely sister. The hem is pin-stitched, but this time with 3/4" hem and a shaped border. The pattern for the border was taken from this Hungarian design on Mary Corbet's Needle'N'Thread. Heritage Shoppe provides PDF's for a number of stitches, including pinstitch, which is also known as point de paris, parisian hem stitch, and madeira applique stitch. The pin stitching on this handkerchief was done with white rayon thread, more suitable for machine stitching, but with care it worked quite well for hand stitching and I love how it makes the stitching and the little holes stand out quite brightly.

The embroidery was done with the same white rayon thread; the pattern was taken from this lovely French blog, except that I dispensed with the border and used only the motif, which is what caught me eye in the first place. Broderie d'Antan has a zillion lovely, creative, inspiring, and easy to use patterns. It's in Mary Corbet's list of recommended resources on the bottom of this page. The little stems were done in split stitch, the leaves in a twisted fly stitch, the open flowers in lazy daisies in pairs and wee french knots, and the buds in granitos/satin stitch, with a single pink lazy daisy stitch across each bud. The granitos by itself wasn't plump enough and satin stitch was too flat, so I compromised by doing a granitos with 3 or 4 stitches and then filled it out by adding stitches that started in the same bottom hole, but hid themselves under the sides and made the bud smooth and plump. My mother showed me how to twist the tips of the fly stitch leaves so the leaves turned one way or another, and also how to hide the ends of the stitches so that the leaf turned out smooth on the edges and I could make them as thick or thin as I wanted just by how tightly packed my stitches were.