A Handmade Gift

When money is tight but the stash is large.
When a Special even is coming and requires a special something.

My husband had a birthday recently and I was at a loss on what to give him. He is a low key kind of guy so he wouldn't have been bummed if I didn't give him anything, but I couldn't do that. I knew of several things that he wants, and several that he needs, but they were all more than I was wanting to spend. A conversation between friends online lead me down the path of how old fashioned he is and I had the brilliant idea of embroidering one of the cloth handkerchiefs that he uses. It would require no money just a design and some time!

I decided I wanted to use an actual Victorian pattern and headed over to De Gracieuse to search through the embroidery patterns. I didn't find Letters of his initials that I liked, many were too flowery, and honestly I am not fond of the way his initials look together. then I found it!

October 1st, 1867, Issue 20
(if the link doesn't work, search for "Gracieuse. Geïllustreerde Aglaja, 1867, aflevering 20, pagina 172/3"
My husband's nickname is Cat, so I left off the O in Cato. I cropped the image and printed it out at the size my printer wanted to and copied it onto the hanky.

 I managed to embroider it, in the same room as my husband (since he was home all this time) and he didn't notice! I was done with it quickly enough that I decided to do a second one. This one I had fun with making my own design.

I think he liked the second one better, but he did appear to like both and was surprised that I had made them right under his nose!

I am not very good at embroidery so I can't tell you much about the stitches other than I used satin and split stitches (I think, I could be very wrong.) I also did not knot the end of the threads, but wove them under the back of the embroidery. I thought this would give a better look to the backsides.

For the sake of honesty, here are the backsides. and I apologize for the poor lighting, I had to be sneaky in the early morning on his birthday to get these pics.