Finished Gift - Embroidery on an Apron

Just a quick post about a quick little project I made for my Nan's birthday earlier in the summer. I had planned on making her the apron from scratch but as with everything else I had planned over the summer time ran away with me! Instead I bought this lovely printed apron and decided to personalise it with a little embroidery! There's a bit of a running joke in my family (involving some cushions!) that my Grandad is Lord of their 'Manor' and therefore my Nan is the 'Lady', a title she quite enjoys! So i decided to embroider this to the apron bib in purple to tie in with the rest of the design.

I'm a big fan of cross stitch and can quite happily wile away a few hours in front of the TV barely looking at what I am stitching. However this was my first time hand-stitching a decorative design without the grid of the Aida fabric to follow. Using a sharp pencil I traced the outline of the letters  very lightly onto the apron, using examples of letters from one of my cross stitch books as a guide. Then I just followed the lines using backstitch trying to keep the stitches as small and neat as possible! I kept the letters as a simple outline as I thought this tied in well with the circular shapes already printed on. I'm pretty pleased with the result, even the back is fairly neat!

In other news I've got a fun-filled few days coming up with a trip to the Textile Forum on South Molton street on Thursday to have a browse through some hopefully gorgeous fabrics and I've got a ticket to the new V&A Hollywood Costume exhibition opening on Saturday. Literally can't wait!