Show & Tell Friday for August 28

One of the first crafts I ever tried was embroidery, many years ago. I grew to really enjoy it, especially crewel embroidery. I don't have photos of most of my projects, and I gave most of them away as gifts. Here's one example, though. I made this Hummel crewel project for my grandmother, who collected Hummel figurines. She eventually gave it back to me, so now I have it on my wall. I do apologize for the quality of the photo here.

I continued to enjoy embroidery until I discovered, and fell in love with, counted cross stitch. That became my craft of choice, and I work on projects here and there whenever I have a few minutes. It tends to take me a long time to complete a project. Here are bits and pieces of a few samplers I have done.

This cross stitch project was a gift for one of my daughters. I am particularly pleased with this one. It was quite challenging. Mr. T. made the frame to my specifications, and I painted it antique gold.

In the past few years I have found myself drawn to embroidery again. Maybe the Lord is preparing me for when my eyes will no longer be good enough for counted cross stitch (although I hope that day never comes!). I have done embroidery on apron pockets, like these:

And day of the week tea towels like this one:

And these:

Although I have a couple of cross stitch projects in the works, I have lately felt the itch to start an embroidery project. I wasn't sure what I wanted to do. But, when doing some decluttering in my craft closet, I came across just the thing. Many years ago, when an elderly friend of ours passed away, her husband (who knew I loved needlecrafts just as she had) gave me some of her things -- a tin of needlework things, etc. I had completely forgotten about this other item, though -- a large oblong tablecloth which she had started embroidering and never finished. There are eight napkins with it, and those are completed. But she had only begun the first corner of the tablecloth. There is a large motif in the center of the cloth, and largish motifs on the corners, with small ones on the sides. She had the first corner perhaps 1/3 completed. I decided that there was my embroidery project. I work on it for a little while most evenings, and here is the first corner all completed!

I love the bright retro colors. This is probably from the 1980s or maybe a bit earlier. It lifts my spirits to work with these bright colors and watch the flowers bloom!

That is my simple Show & Tell for today. To see what others have shared for Show & Tell Friday, head on over to There is No Place Like Home.

Happy Show & Tell Friday!