Tartan Terrier!

 Putting our house on the market and having strangers come to view our home has been somewhat stressful so far, and so I took some time out to create something just for us, to take my mind off things for a while... 

As I mentioned on my main blog, I bought some beautiful woven tartan fabric remnants on our recent holiday to Edinburgh and I was looking to create a souvenir of the trip.
What I had in mind was a large cushion, but first I needed a centerpiece. 

In my workroom I found this wonderful old embroidery transfer from 1937. It being a free gift from Woman's Weekly magazine all those years ago, I had no idea if the ink would still print...but it was worth a try...

I found a lovely old piece of buff coloured linen fabric in my supplies...Set my iron to HOT and pressed the reverse of the transfer onto my cloth. 

Miraculously, it printed pretty well! 

Its been years and years since I've done any hand embroidery, and with no written instructions for this piece, I kept the design simple, just filling in the markings with lots of random straight stitches with silk embroidery thread. 

Despite my rustiness, I'm quite pleased with how my Scottie dog turned out...and he didn't take that long to finish either...

Then it was time to add the tartans. The collection I had bought varied in size and shape, so I had to patch them randomly to make the front section large enough to fit a standard bed pillow.

The reverse was a bit of a hotchpotch too, but showcases a lot of the lovely wool tartan designs.

A reminder of a wonderful trip and its very comfy too! :)
Niki x