After doing a little vintage style embroidery on the quilt, it occurred to me to look for some actual vintage embroidery to use. My thought was to look for some vintage linens at the antique store that were cheap and I would not feel guilty cutting up. Well, I couldn't find anything that was cheap. (They used to go for absurdly low prices.)
I couldn't find what I had in mind at the thrift store either, but I did find this sweet little pinafore with some machine embroidery. It was stuck in the wrong spot in the store, like it was just waiting there for me.
The machine embroidered pieces had little windmills and a dancing Dutch couple. Since some of my heritage is Dutch, that seemed perfect.
Here is the before and after of where I placed one of the pieces.
That light blue gingham was dingy and stained. Since the insert had blue gingham, I thought this was an appropriate replacement.