For a long time now, I have been looking for something to put on my shop that would be a little more, how shall I say, affordable? I also would like something to make that is a little less time consuming for me, and something that I could vary according to the season  I am having little success in this respect with my dolls, since each one seems to be more elaborate than the last, and they almost only sell at Christmas time.

But when I was at my folks house last fall, I found lots of reminders of simpler projects that I had made for various family members at one time or another, in particular, embroidered napkins.  For Christmas one year, I embroidered a dozen monogrammed napkins for each of my family members.  I enjoyed it so much that I went on to do the same thing for quite a while as a gift for newlyweds that I knew.  But I grew tired of it after a while, and stopped.  The idea popped into my head the other day as I was flipping through pinterest, looking for Valentine’s day ideas.

So I decided to combine a few new methods I have learned from Alabama Chanin along with my own designs, on a cotton jersey napkin.  I decided not to use upcycled jersey for this project, mostly since I wouldn’t have been able to find enough to make several matching items.  And I was super excited to find a new website that sells high quality, organic cotton jersey at an affordable price, especially since my local fabric store decided to stop selling their best jersey.

This is just a first attempt, and I decided to make them Valentine-y, since we are just a few weeks away.

I call it  X’s and O’s- Variations on a Theme.

You will see that these are deliberately a little rustic looking with unfinished edges and slightly crooked lines.  But when you are working with jersey, that is kind of the way it is.  It took me a long time to adjust to the idea of not hemming edges, but once I got over it, my life has been so much easier!  🙂

Here are some up close looks.  These napkins are 16 by 12 inches when unfolded.

You will also notice that I used some mixed media here- there is inking as well as hand embroidery.

Here they are unfolded, The X’s and O’s by themselves-

And then combined with a few hearts-

Once again, I appreciate feed back!  And if you are interested, there isn’t much time left before Valentine’s day, so let me know.  ( I can of course sell them in larger numbers.)

P.S. I hope to experiment with monograms next.