Monday 30 March 2015

Crayon Tinted Embroidery: Introduction

Tinted linens & Quilts.


Tinted embroidery is as simple as colouring in pages of a colouring in book. Over time tinted textiles have held a special place in popular embroidery. Items from toys, needle cases, quilts, laundry bags, pillow slips, tea towels and other humble linens used for the home once featured tinted colour and or combined with embroidery stitches. A touch of tinted colour often transformed simple, popular motifs into artful timeless treasures. Hand tinted novelties from the 1920’s, 1930’s and 1940’s were at the peak of popularity.  The charm of tinted works of these eras were so popular it is hard to image the era’s without them. Today tinted embroidery is rarely heard of and many collectors appreciate the vintage charm older pieces have.


To make:
STEP 1: Position material over a pattern, secure corners with masking tape. Trace pattern outline directly onto material with a blue line fade away pen or pencil if you prefer.
Click on to enlarge image, right click save. Then print.
Step 2: Place material on a padded surface like a stack of printing paper to work on. And begin to colour areas with regular children’s Crayola crayons.  Colour the pattern well with the crayon colour to make sure no fabric is showing through. White, cream, and very pale coloured fabric is best for any tinted embroidery.
Step 3: Sandwich the material between two sheets of plain paper. Iron on ‘cotton’ setting to ‘set’ the crayon colours.


Step 4:  If desired the design can now be embroidered using 3-ply embroidery thread (floss) to outline the design in simple stem stitch (outline stitch). Plain black embroidery thread looks effective but you can also use embroidery thread to match the colour of the tinting. Use a darker shade (colour) of thread to go with the tint.

Washing care:
Once set, linens can be machined washed in cold water. If you have a potholder I prefer to wash mine by hand. I swish it around in mild detergent and roll it up in a towel to squeeze out excess water then hang up to dry. 

...And then he ate some radishes

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I hope everyone is having a good day or evening where ever you are.




Strangers and Pilgrims on Earth

12 comments:

  1. Thanks for that, Shiralee. Good tutorial.

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    Replies
    1. Nanna Chel,
      Hopefully it'll get you started on your own tinted works.
      -Shiralee.

      Delete
  2. I have never heard of tinted embroidery before. Very interesting.

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    Replies
    1. Sherri,
      the first I became aware of it was remembering the late 70's when mum used to do those ballpoint paint pen crafts. Which were popular at the time. I was looking for that to do and came across the crayon ones.
      -Shiralee.

      Delete
  3. Gosh - to think the hours I have spent trying to get crayon out of material and here is a beautiful antithesis - love it!

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    Replies
    1. Phil,
      I'm pretty certain someone had that very same problem and decided to make the most of all those times they had to get crayon out of material too.
      -Shiralee.

      Delete
  4. Shiralee, all your embroidery is lovely but this has a real depth to the design - almost 3d I suppose. Just lovely.

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    Replies
    1. Barb,
      I really like the black embroidery thread as I think it does give a better depth to the work. But the shaded ones to match the tinting look pretty too.
      -Shiralee.

      Delete
  5. What a neat project! I love dear Peter too :) Thank you for sharing this on the Art of Home-Making Mondays!

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    Replies
    1. Jes,
      The design lends its self well to this time of technqiue. Thank you for hosting the link up.
      -Shiralee

      Delete
  6. I absolutely LOVE this!!!! I have used textile paints and markers before but have never used crayons. I love the look of this! I'm inspired!!

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  7. Thank you so much for giving the instructions for this! I'd never seen anything like this before with the coloring in on the fabric. I really like this idea and want to try it. It's giving me some interesting ideas! :-)

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