Vintage Tuesday #3

Parakeet Embroidery
Parakeet Embroidery

I have a lot of needlework from my female ancestors. I am starting to have a hard time appreciating it, because It is taking up space in my cupboards and not all of it is my style. Yet I feel compelled to keep it. I know this is how the Young Man will feel when all the quilts I feel compelled to make are dumped on his living room floor when I am dead.

Parakeet Embroidery-detail
Parakeet Embroidery-detail

This dresser scarf is actually one of the pieces that I like and use. the birds look very cheerful in this piece.

We had parakeets when I was a kid and, though, they were messy, they also made a cheerful noise. We had a green (Bilbo) and a blue one (Gandalf). As an aside: My mom named them, I think, because I would have never named them after characters in the Lord of the Rings series.

I like the embroidery because the cheerful personality of the birds comes through.

Parakeet Embroidery-detail
Parakeet Embroidery-detail

I also like the way the stitching was done. It isn’t really dense, so the stitches seem to have some air to breathe.

I haven’t ever seen an embroidery with this pattern before and it makes me wonder if it is unusual.

I think this one must have been made by my maternal great grandmother, because of the tatting around the edge. I don’t remember my grandmother ever doing tatting.

I looked for an image of the pattern, so I could give some background for those of you history buffs, but didn’t come up with anything. ‘The’ Google’s precision is really lacking. I would love to be able to filter more, but they have dumbed their system down enough that it is nearly unusable for difficult searches.

I’ll add the information if I find it later.