Chorus of Angels Tablecloth

Some of you may recall this design, which Mam and I were thinking of developing into the background for the crib figures I inherited from one of my great aunts. I’ve not managed to think of a way to make it work in embroidery yet, so I keep on looking at it and thinking “No”, and moving on.

Sigh.

However, it has occurred to us that using the same angels as the basis for a design for the Christmas tablecloth might work quite nicely, and will give us another chance to play with the shapes and design.

So, sized for the purpose, planned out and tweaked. And we’ve decided, rather than embroidering directly on the tablecloth (if you’ve ever embroidered a tablecloth, you will have a fair guess why we aren’t!), we are going to prepare the applique separately and attach those to the tablecloth.

We’re using quilting cottons in red, yellow, and green, and we’ve got everything cut out and pinned approximately in place, and now we’re not sure what to do next!

So there are some experiments ahead. I’m thinking of restricting the colours to stranded cotton in the same red, green and yellow (as far as possible), and using a variety of interesting edging stitches. And we both have samplers of those in our embroidered Coat of Many Flowers and the Little Jacket!