Jenn's Shower Gift from Me

My sister Jenn is 10 years younger than I am. We are all very excited that she has found a great guy to spend the rest of her life with. Jenn's been working for almost twenty years and has had her own house for years. There's not a lot she needs as she already has a full kitchen. I thought that it would be appropriate if I made her a gift for her shower. I turned to my book "Colorful Stitchery" to see what might inspire me. I decided to do a variation on these handmade pillowcases.


Jenn is marrying a guy named Patrick who goes by Pat. I wanted to include both their names on their pillowcases. Lucky for me I could shorten Patrick to Pat and Jenn is short - only 7 letters to stitch. I found some lovely lightweight linen fabric at my favorite fabric store in Brattleboro, Delectable Mountain. Pillowcases are very easy to make - just a giant rectangle with a few seams. Linen pillowcases are hard to find but they are so easy to make.

For the embroidery pattern, I wrote out both their names and then drew a little heart on a piece of paper. Using the directions in my book, I transferred the script and the hearts to the fabric using fabric transfer paper. Then I traced over the design with a blue water soluble marker. I used 3 strands of cotton embroidery floss in an aqua shade for the letters and worked them in a tiny chain stitch.

For the heart, I used 3 strands of embroidery floss in zinnia pink, chartreuse and salmon. I used a tiny chain stitch for the heart lines and filled the inner heart with French knots.


Then I decided to stitch a line of salmon running stitch at the machine stitch hem for a little more decoration.


This whole project was pretty easy to do and made a very thoughtful handmade shower gift. The amount of time spent on it wasn't overwhelming -- I worked on it at a couple farmer's markets and one evening. You can find directions for the top project in my book Colorful Stitchery which is for sale in my shop.