Skip to content

Embroidered Handwriting Memory Piece

My dad passed away in 2022. A couple of years later, I wanted to make a keepsake for my mum, and decided to create an embroidered piece in his handwriting. We couldn’t find a card or similar that he had written to my mum, so using handwriting samples that my brother and I found of notes he had written, I started by pulling out examples of the letters and words I might need and put them together so I could see the similarities and differences across various examples.

A table with the letters "a, e, h, I, J, l, m n, o, r, u, v, and y" down the left, with sections of images of handwriting of each letter next to them. In the top right hand corner is the text "Mary I love you John. with all my love", some sections of handwriting of the words "with" and "all", and in the centre are a number of the sections of photos of handwriting pieced together to create the text "Mary I love you John with all my"

After discussing it with my brother, we decided to go with the wording “with all my love” as it felt more like what my dad would have written in a card to our mum, so I pieced this together from the letters and words I had found to create my template. We chose a frame that we would put the final piece in, which I drew the size of onto some fabric, and then traced the design into this space with fabric pens in order to embroider it onto the fabric.

Sections of photos of handwriting pieced together to form the words "Mary with all my love John" with some decorative swirls around them.White fabric with a red rectangle drawn on it and the text "Mary with all my love John" and some decorative swirls drawn inside the rectangle.White fabric in an embroidery hoop. the words "Mary with all my love" are written on the fabric and there are two black threads laying across the fabric, one thin and one thickerWhite fabric in an embroidery hoop. the words "Mary with all my love John" and some decorative swirls are embroidered on the fabric in black thread.

The finished piece, which my mum loved:

A silver frame with and embroidered piece of art in it with the words: "Mary with all my love John" with some decorative swirls around them.