I have a passion for embroidery, of course. I also have a passion for the little enamel boxes produced in England in the 18th and early 19th centuries. I especially love the ones with mottos and/or motifs of birds and urns or country houses and pastoral scenes. (Go here for examples of these treasures).

Unfortunately, these patch and snuff boxes (the former for carrying the small leather patches worn as beauty marks, the latter for snuff) go for more money than I can manage, even those that aren't in great condition. Last spring I attempted to assuage my desire for Battersea boxes, as they're known, by copying designs and creating embroidery patterns from them.

The picture above shows a finished example of one of these copied box designs. My technique: I digitally saved a copy of a photo of a box and used my photo software to clean up the image. I removed everything from the photo except the design itself, removed any cracks and spots, and sharpened the image as much as possible so I could identify clean lines. I printed this design out on plain 8 1/2 x 11 paper. If the image wasn't dark enough, I went over the design on the right side with a fine Sharpie. Once the design showed on the back dark enough that I could follow all the detail, I went over every line with a fine-pointed black transfer pen. Then it was simply a matter of ironing the transfer onto a piece of fabric and going to work.

Since I was just experimenting, I only used a finely woven muslin as my fabric. I chose bone-colored or natural muslin instead of bleached white because I liked the aged effect. For some designs I simply used one strand of whatever black floss I had in my stash. On the design above, I experimented with using one of the hand-dyed flosses, using a "mascara" shade for the main lines and a dark charcoal for the details (like the folds in the cuffs).

Either a stem stitch or an outline stitch works overall, plus some details call for French knots, long and short stitches, and daisy stitches. Some of the patterns I tried even required touches of satin stitch. I enjoyed experimenting with every aspect, from the fabric to the floss to the stitches. I have several of these made, but haven't quite figured out what I want to do with them. Of course, they'd be fine framed, and they don't have to be worked in black. I was trying, literally, to recreate the look of the enamel box lids.

One problem I ran into is the pattern can be skewed depending on how the lid is photographed. Sometimes I had to do a little repair sketching to even out the proportions on the designs.

This approach would work if you have a scanner and an interesting china pattern you'd like to recreate. A plate would probably work best. If you're planning a piece of redwork (or trying for an black-and-white line drawing effect ), don't try to reproduce every detail in the illustration; you want a crisp effect, not one that's too busy, with elements that are competing with themselves. If you would rather approach the design as the basis for colored embroidery, crewel, or punchneedle, of course, you can take it wherever you want to go. Be sure to use the appropriate fabrics and fibers for those techniques.

I have a beloved Homer Laughlin bowl that features a transfer design of Abraham Lincoln giving the Gettysburg Address. Someday I've going to borrow my mother's scanner and see what I come up with. I'll keep you posted.

--Nancy