When I went back home a few weeks ago, I brought with me these embroidery swatches my grandmother Luisa made in the 30's (or that is what my mom told me, my grandma was born in 1913, she was still in school, so it makes sense) I'm amazed the colors are still bright and there isn't a single loose strand on the back... that's what I call a neat work! They swatches are wrinkled and with some yellow stains but I'd be scared to wash them or iron them even with a damp cloth. Actually I don't want to touch them so much, my idea is to put them on a frame but even so I'd not want the sun to ruin their color so I still don't know what I'm going to do with them. And I just saw at my dashboard that this is my post nº 100, I don't think there will be a nicer way to "celebrate" than sharing my grandmother's craft.
I don't remember much of my grandma Luisa, only that she loved rocking me to sleep (I even have a picture of this), I'd really like to have her with me, I share so many things with her and my other grandma. Luisa was more of embroidering and sewing and my other grandma, María, liked painting, cooking and baking, and both shared the love for knitting and crochet, pretty much like me. I think in those years it was a must for women to have those skills but I think they would have done the same if it was today, they were skilled women with passion and perfection for crafts.
I always wanted to keep these swatches, good thing my mom didn't let me play with them when I was a kid and liked (I still do?) to play with her sewing supplies and my grandma's clothing and suitcases.
These are practice swatches, they are so neat that I can't even imagine what was the real work like! I wish they would still teach this in school (actually I was taught how to embroider back in 3rd grade but it wasn't for real, just plain chain stitch on a printed piece of fabric and I wasn't good at it :p)
I never get tired of staring at my grandma's work, everytime I find a new stitch.
A few days ago I started to embroider -"again" for real- to make a project for my mom, I'm still practising and who knows... someday my own grandchildren will stare at my own swatches, I hope the craft lineage will still run in their blood.
Anyways, here are some closer pictures of the swatches I brought.
So far I could identified: pleats, zig zag and satin stitch and the others I'm still not sure about
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