I can remember on one of my grandmother’s visits to our house my mother gave Bushia her sewing basket to organize. As is usually the case with unattended spools of thread, as soon as the lid was closed to the basket, they would party, and the next time you opened the lid, all of the spools of thread were in a tangled mess! Those rowdy spools of thread!
Anyway, Mom had suggested to Bushia to cut off the tangled mess when lining up the spools of thread. Bushia would not hear of it! She had given birth to 13 children and appreciated making do and wasting nothing. It was unthinkable to even create a pile of snippets of thread that would be discarded. She took the time to untangle the thread and put little caps on each spool to prevent the future intertwining of said threads.
Bushia organized, lined up, sorted, and in general, put the sewing basket in tip-top shape. Long after Bushia had passed, nay… even until this day… when you look into my mom’s basket, you can still see signs that Bushia was there. And, I will admit, when my threads throw caution to the wind and party behind my back, causing their ends to commingle, I take the time to separate the threads and always think of Bushia. She taught me well!
The Pattern for the Thread Applique can be found HERE.
The May Appliques can be found HERE.
The tutorial on How to Enlarge and Reduce Patterns can be found HERE.
The tutorial on How to Cut Out Felt can be found HERE.
The Stitching Glossary can be found HERE.
Our Gallery of all our Appliques can be found HERE.
DIRECTIONS – Refer to pattern and photo for applique placements and cutting instructions.
Make a copy of the pattern.
Cut out felt using the photo above and pattern. Transfer any embroidery markings.
Using a running stitch, sew spool to block using 2 strands floss.
Using a blanket stitch on the sides, and a running stitch across the top and bottom, sew thread to spools using 3 strands of floss.
Using a stem stitch, add detail to spools using 6 strands floss.
Using a satin stitch, embroider the spool holes using 6 strands floss.
Using a stem stitch, add embroidered threads to spools in coordinating colors using 6 strands of floss.
