A collection of monograms found on antique French sheets. The first image shows the entire collection. All my embroidery kits are printed on antique linen/hemp sheets from France, and I have been saving the monograms for some years now. Some of you will know that I am having ‘le grand clear out’ and so I have put together four collections of these monograms. Some are very simple letters to identify the sheets at the laundry or even during the annual village wash (la grande lessive). Some are more ornate and were probably stitched for trousseaux. The little ones are about 2cm high which should give you an idea of how big the larger ones are. They were photographed on a biblically wet, grey November day but the reds are all that gorgeous proper French cross-stitch red, and the paler ones, faded through years of washing and drying on the line are paler pinks.

I have left any spare linen around them so that you can make little lavender cushions. Other possibilities that spring to mind are

Use bondaweb to fix them to card tags and stitch around the edges for either very special gift or place tags
Patch them onto existing plain napkins or your apron
Make little Christmas stockings for the tree

I think they would also make delightful pieced ‘samplers’ into which you could add, well, pretty much anything you like – your own stitching, more monograms from your own collection, fragments of antique fabric…

The price includes postage and packing to all parts of the United Kingdom. If you are ordering from overseas, please purchase an additional 10 tracking voucher unless your order, not including tracking, exceeds 100.