Patriotic Embroidery

I know this is kind of late-but I thought I'd post this anyway. I thought I'd share with you how I turn an image into a pattern. I didn;t have a Patriotic pillow, so I looked through my stash and found this vintage magazine.Very old and faded. I will only use the main part of the image.
I put it through the printer and make a color copy. This is where you can make it the size you want it to be.I trace the out line of all the stuff I want in my finished embroidery with a thin sharpie to make the lines stand out.
I trace it onto my fabric with a light box and disappearing ink fabric marker.You can put it up to a sunny window, if you don't have a light box.
You could start embroidering it right now, or you can add color. I chose to color in with Prang crayons. You can use any kind of crayon, but the Prang are a little softer. You don't have to do the same colors as the image, you can get creative here.

Don't worry about being too neat. Just have fun. Then iron the color in with a paper towel over it, so it doesn't melt onto your iron.
Start embroidering-no rules here. I did the entire thing with a straight stitch, except for the stars on the flag. I used french knots. You could get creative again, by adding beads, small buttons, different stitches, colors etc. I did mine very simply.
When I stitch, Max sits on my lap. It's a tight fit!
After embroidering, rinse it under water if you used a water dissolving pen. It looks a little weird, until you rinse away the blue ink pen.
Let it dry and press it flat. I added strips of fabric that I had to make a pillow cover, but you could do anything you want with this.
Here's the image I traced off for you to use. You could do it all one color-like redwork, or go crazy with coloring.It's really fun to use some of those vintage images in new ways.
Here's one I did for Valentines day-same steps. You can use vintage cards, magazine ads,old book pictures. Have fun and let me know if you decide to try this.Joining It all started with paint Pillowpalloza for a fun pillow party.

Leslie