Grandmama’s Embroidery – One

Grandmama embroidered this lovely lady on a nightdress case for my mother during the War, when they were evacuated to Westmorland. The colours have faded rather now, but it is still beautiful, and the long and short stitch puts me firmly in my place!

The reason it is all so neat is that Grandmama had an embroidery teacher at the time, called Miss Hunter (I mentioned her in an early post). I’m sure Miss Hunter must have been trained at the Royal School of Needlework, because her standards were ferociously high. Grandmama once told me that one of the other ladies in the class at the time was working a Willow Pattern design in single strands of stranded cotton.

The back shows how the colours once appeared, and also how neatly Grandmama worked it all. With the exception of the centres of the hollyhocks, you really can’t be sure you aren’t looking at the front!

Miss Hunter’s influence still prevails. A few years ago I taught an engineering friend of mine to do counted cross stitch, and he rapidly picked up our habit of checking that the back was as neat as the front!