Vintage Wall Art with Embroidery Hoops

My mother-in-law, Jan, is a very crafty lady and I love making and giving her handmade creations for her birthday. I was really wracking my brain this Spring though, trying think of the perfect thing to make. I saw this post on The Grapics Fairy, and thought it was a great idea. I wasn't into the images they used, so I decided to look through all the other vintage pictures she has available to dowload (for free) and found some great sewing images. Bingo. Perfect for Jan, who can sew like nobody's mother, for real. She is an amazing quilter (all by hand too) and mades gorgeous dresses for little girls in weddings, and even American Girl dolls. I thought it would be fun to use the same idea to make her a series of vintage sewing wall art for her sewing room. This is fairly easy to do, but please be careful! I used muslin fabric that I purchased at Joann's and attached it a full sheet label and ran it through my printer (so the image printed directly onto the muslin fabric). This can get jammed easily in your printer so make sure you trim any loose ends of fabric before printing and use caution (there is risk involved putting anything but paper in your printer). I used 7.5" embroidery hoops for this project. I had wanted to paint them an antique black but ran out of time.
Okay, let's get started. You will need:
3 embroidery hoops - 7.5"
Avery full sheet labels
muslin or linen fabric
printer
Directions:Cut your fabric the same size as your full sheet label (8.5x11).
Peel the paper back off the sheet label and carefully attach your fabric, lining up the edges perfectly.
Use your hand to smooth out any bumps or wrinkles. Trim any excess fabric or loose threads from the edges.
Save your selected images from The Grapics Fairy and open the first one in a Word document. Center the image on the page, resizing if necessary. Some of this is trial and error. I printed my image on paper first and placed under the embroidery hoop to see if it was sized right. I also printed in black and white.
Once you are certain you have the right size and placement on the page, print on the fabric/sheet label, making sure you feed the label approriately so the image prints on the fabric side and not the label side.
Carefully peel the fabric off the label.
Place the fabric in the hoop, placing it so the image looks centered. Pull the fabric taunt so it is smooth and there are no wrinkles. Tighten the top once you are happy with how it looks.
Trim away the excess fabric on the back.
And there you have it.
Continue with the other images using the same process. You can reuse the full sheet label up to 3 times. After that it loses it's stickiness and won't hold the fabric well enough to go through the printer.
Fun and easy art to make. There are some great baby vintage images that would make beautiful wall art for a nursery.
Here they are hanging in my mother-in-law's sewing room.
She loved them! Now I need to make some for me :)

Comments

  1. Are they blue or white? I'm guessing white. They are so cool. I almost got her a pillow from Restoraton Hardware Baby that had a vintagey-looking scissors or spool of thread but then it had words on it (or something) so we didn't - they would have been so cool together.

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  2. I love them!!! Sarah, black print on muslin.
    I love handmade gifts for my b'day or anytime :)

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