It’s lovely to see so many of your finished Brighter Days Daffodils tapestries arriving in our workshop for making up. Thank you for sending them in. It’s so warm at the moment that once we’ve stretched the canvases they are drying very fast, so our sewing ladies can work their magic and get your tapestries back to you quickly.
If you’re about to finish your Brighter Days Daffodils tapestry and aren’t sure how you’d like it to be made up, read on for inspiration.
Cushions Sue and Nicola each had their Brighter Days Daffodils tapestries made into cushions, with a 3″ border in blue velvet and contrast orange piping.
What a great combination, and a reminder that you can pick out the green and orange shades of the tapestry if you like.
You can see all our velvet fabric on our blog, but please note that Prussian Blue has been discontinued by the manufacturer. We are trying to find another supplier of this shade as it bridges the gap between Royal and Navy, although saying that there are times when we can hardly tell the difference between Prussian and Royal in the workshop, and have to look at the reverse of the fabric to tell the difference!
Other shades of velvet that you might like to consider are here:
Many of you have enjoyed personalising your Brighter Days Daffodils tapestries. Alison has added text from Wordsworth’s famous poem in hers…and we’re looking forward to seeing more text in her next one.
Side view of Alison’s Brighter Days Daffodils. We used yellow cotton for border and backing, with contrast piping in royal blue – Chelsea.
Here are our some of our yellow cotton options. It’s so hard to get the colours right in our colour boards, and all devices show colours differently so do contact us if you’d like us to send you some fabric samples in the post.
Some of our blue cotton options:
We have a range of cotton fabric which has a soft ‘brushed’ feel to it. The greens and blues are very good options for Brighter Days Daffodils, or maybe orange as Virgina selected for her Daffodils.
Here are the oranges, along with pinks and purples. Virginia chose Carey SC01 for the 3″ border around her cushion.
For the piping, we used Kendal SC06 and for the backing a lovely denimy Kelso SC08.
Jane sent in her Brighter Days Daffodils which looked lovely with ‘Sunshine on Leith’ stitched into it. We were singing Proclaimers songs whenever we worked on Jane’s cushions, and I am again now as I write about it! We used a dark blue woolly fabric similar to the now discontinued Indigo for the 3″ border and backing, with contrast piping in cotton Meadow Grass JRCG02.
This range of cotton has a slightly different finish to the range we used for Virginia’s cushion. Contact us if you need any samples and we’ll send you a batch so you can choose the fabric for your tapestry in the comfort of your home.
Here are Virgina and Jane’s tapestries together, each showing off their contrast piping.
Tapestry Bags Ann sent her Daffodils to us be made into a bag. We used Chelsea cotton, with a yellow linining. No doubt Ann turned a lot of heads with her stunning bag as it was ready in time for her to take on holiday to France!
Get in touch if you are thinking about having your Brighter Days Daffodils (or any other tapestry) made into a bag. We can talk you through the things you need to consider from your fabric choices, whether you want one or two straps…and how long they should be, how much border (if any) you’d like around the stitched tapestry area. There’s a lot to think about!
Here is a link to the complete range of cotton fabric that we keep in stock. For our own cushion we also used Chelsea cotton, with Primrose yellow piping.
Specs cases Brighter Days Daffodils is fantastic to make as a specs case to make for yourself for reading glasses or sunglasses, and makes a terrific and very useful gift.
We have recently added a specs case designs category to our website. Here you can see all the designs that lend themselves to being folded in half, while not compromising the imagery in the design. Shown below are Birds in a Tree, Dachshund Stripes, Pigs and Piglets, Whirligigs, Brighter Days Daffodils and Jolly Campervans.
If you’ll be sending a Brighter Days Daffodils to us for making up as a specs case, you’ll need to decide on two things. First, the colour of wool that you’d like us to use for the handstitched outer edge and along the top. Most people choose one of the wool colours from the kit and attach a swatch of it to their canvas or booking form.
The next thing is the lining colour and we have lots for you to choose from, starting with blues:
Yellows:
Oranges and reds:
There are more options in our cotton lining fabrics as we use these linings not only for specs cases but also for our Christmas stockings and teacosy kits.
Two choices of background blue You’ll notice that some of tapestries in the photos have one shade of background blue (shade 8672), but others have a more cornflower blue (shade 8644). Ann’s bag and Alison’s cushion with the yellow border each have shade 8644. 8672 is the shade that we include with most Brighter Days Daffodils kits and is the one that we used for our own cushion and specs case. If you order online you have the option to request ‘cornflower blue’. Just add it as a note with your order, or send us an email and we’ll make sure you have your chosen shade. They are both lovely!
We’ll be regularly updating this Brighter Days Daffodils blog, so do check in every now and then to see what other stitchers have been up to!
Best wishes and happy stitching,
Kelly x
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