Vintage doily name plate

I have a little collection of embroidered doilys stashed away for a rainy day and when a friend of mine recently had a baby I picked out one of my favourites to embroider her new daughters name on it.

Here's the drill if you want to have a go at one of these yourself.  You need:

• One lovely doily
• A wooden embroidery hoop (mine was a 15cm one)
• Embroidery floss
• Computer and printer
• Scissors, needle, sharpened lead pencil

First give the doily a good press with your iron so its starting off nice and flat and crisp.  Next, print out the name you wish to use in a font that you like from your computer. I chose Palace Script MT font and printed it at size 120 (from Microsoft Word).  Place the doily over the name printed on the paper, centering the name as you like depending on the embroidery designs on your doily.  You might like to use a light box or a window here to help you see through the doily fabric, but I found I didn't need one.

Take a well sharpened lead pencil, or one of those disappearing fabric markers if you like and trace carefully over the name.  Then take your embroidery hoop and centre the doily inside the hoop, make sure the metal hoop tightener is at the top of your work, this will be where you hang it from when you are finished. Tighten the hoop.  Now you are ready for the embroidering.

After looking through the purple and pink threads I had in my embroidery box I chose a light purple.  

I used a simple back stitch.

 Once you are done with the embroidery, tidy the ends up on the reverse side by trimming them and then trim the edges of the doily close to the hoop frame.

Tada!  You are done.  Hang on a nail or pin board pin using the metal hoop tightener.  

Simple and sweet.