This week here at The Old Vicarage, Mr HenHouse has been busy decorating the sitting room. I will help him when it gets to the painting but the sanding is his domain. I therefore found myself with a little very welcome time on my hands, I even found time to look at a favourite magazine. (Issue Seventeen.)
There was a particular project which caught my eye.
Spooltastic!
I wanted to make some thank you cards for friends and hmm, maybe I might whip up a few goodies, too.
I attacked the scrap drawers. I wanted bright, I needed colourful! I hunted out spots, dots, stripes, checks. Ditsy flowers here and there, lots of easy and oh so enjoyable piecing.
Combined with a bit of linen to make the tops and bottoms, the spools began to emerge. Just like old fashioned Sylko! I made a little variation with the square-ended spools to jazz things up a bit.
I added a spot of simple embroidery with perle cottons, choosing to add a line of co-ordinating coloured running stitch to outline the top and bottom of each spool. I also added the word "SYLKO" to the middle spool of each set. I just write this on freehand with an air-erasable pen. Cute!
Before too long, the spools were finished and it was time to attach them to a string to make the bunting. I hunted in my stash to find a suitable bit of tape.
I didn't have enough for both sets (it's rare the stash is defeated!) so I set out to track down some more. I can report that Hobbycraft has a good selection, pretty cheap, too.
I made one set incorporating flower power 1960's florals combined with crazy spots by Kaffe Fasset.
Whilst pondering all things spooly and Sylko, and having been reading my vintage mags this week, I wanted to show you the fabulous adverts in them I've always loved.
Each issue had a different advert with fabulous artwork. I love the one with the escalator. These are from the late 1930s, early 1940s.
During the wartime years and beyond, in time of paper shortage, magazines were published less frequently and generally in a smaller format. The advert on the reverse was not necessarily different every time but always colourful and artistic. You can spot the references to "make do and mend".
The bunting finished, it was time to see how it would look.
The backdrop is a bit too distracting.
There, that's better.
I made the other set using modern fabrics, in a retro style.
I enjoyed making them, I loved selecting and piecing the fabrics, though I generally dislike working with linen as it has such a loose weave so I think it is difficult to achieve a perfect shape with the spool ends. Next time, I'll use a stiffer plain cotton fabric which looks like linen, I think. I also didn't like the fact that the instructions were to embroider the spools once the backing was already sewn on. This means you can see your embroidery on the plain reverse and although I did my very best to be neat and I suppose it's not on display, it offends my neat and tidy nature! So maybe there are a few modifications to try next time.
They're all tied up and ready to be posted.
I hope they're well received!
Enjoy your weekend.
Xxx
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