One of our regular customers at market has asked me to make this embroidery into a wallhanging.
It belonged to her grandmother and she thinks it's at least 100 years old. It is made up of individual embroideries about 1½" by 2" oversewn together by hand and then topstitched using (I would assume) cotton embroidery floss with button-hole stitch and whipstitch. The embroideries are on silk fabric and come from India. It has been in a draw for about 30 years.
The picture above is actually on its side. It consists of 6 middle columns with 6 embroideries in each column and an outside border where the embroideries have been turned on their side. There are also about 20 or so single flowers that need to be incorporated.
I think I will suggest removing the whole of the outside border, especially as one is quite soiled, and one of the corners is missing. I can then re-arrange the border ones into columns and add the single ones alongside. Has anyone ever come across anything like this or restored anything similar? I'd be glad to hear how you tackled it.
It's absolutely gorgeous, the colours are so bright. Each embroidery is of a different English flower. My favourites are the primrose, foxglove, lily of the valley and lupin.
I'm so pleased to have been asked to do this, it is beautiful and I hope I can do it justice. But for now I will just marvel at this fascinating item, and complete it with lots of loving care.
Bye for now
Jenny
