Mary Thomas, Signs of the Zodiac and Queen of the Fete!

Yesterday was our Parish Fete - held in the grounds of Stokenham House overlooking Start Bay. We were really lucky with the weather - and as you can see the fete this year had something of an American theme as of course it was Independence Day.

Anyway, Amy (my Newfoundland Dog) was asked to return to be a competition again. Last year it was "Guess My Weight" and this year was "Guess My Birthday". But what to give as a prize? Then I remembered an old embroidery transfer from Woman's Weekly that I guess my Mum saved from the 1960's. It has all the signs of the Zodiac and I thought it would make the basis of a great prize based on birthdays. So .... I scanned it ... it's rather large so I had to scan it in six pieces... here's what two of them looked like:

Then I tidied the images up a bit and added some colours ....

Printed them onto transfer paper and transferred the images to pure cotton sheeting using my trusty heat press. And made it into a zodiac cushion. Here is Amy, Queen of the Fete, sitting next to her prize. I didn't take a closer photo of that particular cushion, but I loved it so much I made another for sale on my website, DevonBear Designs.

As well as the actual cushion, I'm going to list the pdf of these Zodiac signs for sale as a download at $5. I think they'd be great for birthday cards/presents - to make cushions or other soft furnishings or even for gifts for new babies, perhaps personalised with name and date? I'll try to list them in the next couple of days, but if anyone would like to purchase earlier, then please email me helen@devonbeardesigns.com

Finally, still on the embroidery theme, one of my most cherished possessions is a 1930's edition of Mary Thomas's Dictionary of Embroidery stitches that I inherited from my Mother. I just adore the little black and white illustrations that accompany some of the stitches - and think they would make good embroidery transfers in their own right.

I've enlarged the tiny thumbnails to 3" x 5" and put them onto a pdf which you can download here for free if you'd like to have them. Until next time... happy stitching!!