Dads and Grandpa

My dad has carried a handkerchief as long as I can remember. If we skinned our knees or had a runny nose when we were little, the handkerchief was there. When I got a little older I'd embroider dad a set for Christmas or his birthday, so I knew I wanted to do something special for the wedding. Ryan's dad occasionally carries a handkerchief and Ryan mentioned that his grandpa would like one as well.

I bought a set of 3 Charter Club handkerchiefs at Macy's for $10, and I bought red and aqua embroidery thread at Hobby Lobby for $2. I could've gotten away with way less thread, too, since embroidery thread has 6 strands in it and I separated it to use 2. So one piece of thread could go 3 times as long (the stitches were thick and sloppy looking with all 6 strands, 2 definitely looked the best).

I typed up the words I wanted in the font we used for our invites. It's called Tagettes and I downloaded it for free from DaFont.com. After washing, drying and ironing the handkerchiefs, I traced over the typed up words in with a pencil so I'd have something to go from.

After that I just used a simple outline stitch, and that was it, really. I got all 3 done in 3 days, it took about 1-1.5 per handkerchief. (Here's a good tutorial on stitches, the one I used for these was an outline stitch).

Anyway, here's the one I made for Ryan's grandpa:


And I made 2 of this one, one for Ryan's dad and one for my dad.



I am thrilled with how they turned out. They are not perfect, but I love that they don't look machine stitched, they look handmaid. I hope the dads and grandpa like them as much as I do!

Also I really miss having these to work on already...anyone need any embroidery done? I can really only do the cross stitch and outline stitch!

Does your dad carry a handkerchief?