Sunday 31 December 2017

NYE Mystery SAL: Part 9

Welcome back! I hope you had fun stitching part eight and are ready for the next part! The First 24 hours of stitching are up! Still three more parts to go though, so you aren't done yet!

NYE Mystery SAL: Part 8

Welcome back! I hope you had fun stitching part seven and are ready for the next part! Next time a pattern is posted the first 24 hours will be up! Some of you are waking up on New Years Day while others are awaiting that moment when the fireworks start - I hope you are all safe and will stay safe!

NYE Mystery SAL: Part 7

Welcome back! I hope you had fun stitching part six and are ready for the next part! I bet you thought the green was never ending! So now you have seen a second colour I bet you are hoping to go back to green... yes?

NYE Mystery SAL: Part 6

Welcome back! I hope you had fun stitching part five and are ready for the next part! Will this green never end??? Perhaps - perhaps the other colours were just a ruse *grin*

NYE Mystery SAL: Part 5

Welcome back! I hope you had fun stitching part four and are ready for the next part! The First 12 hours of stitching are up! Still quite a way to go, so I hope you are remembering to eat, drink, and sleep!

NYE Mystery SAL: Part 4

Welcome back! I hope you had fun stitching part three and are ready for the next part! I heard you all go "What??? More green???" when you saw part 3! Lets see what's next eh?

NYE Mystery SAL: Part 3

Welcome back! I hope you had fun stitching part two and are ready for the next part! two times green so far - what will it be next?  More green? Another colour? Well there is only one way to find out!

NYE Mystery SAL: Part 2

Welcome back! I hope you had fun stitching part one and are ready for the next part! I'm sure you are wondering by now where you will end up with this as a start. More green? Another colour? Well there is only one way to find out!

Saturday 30 December 2017

NYE Mystery SAL: Part 1

Welcome to the NYE Mystery SAL! For the next day and a bit you will be given a new part for the mystery pattern every 3 hours - starting now!

Friday 29 December 2017

Friday Freebie: 2018

This week's Friday freebie is fairly simple but hopefully you will like it! Its inspired by fireworks exploding behind something - in this case the year to come. If you start now and are not joining in with the NYE Mystery SAL then you may make it!

NYE Mystery SAL

I had a crazy idea and I have no idea if anyone would want to join in but... many moons ago when I quilted I joined in with a NYE Mystery Quilt that would be stitched as a group while waiting for the New year (and for the Americans something for the girls to do while the guys watched football). I thought it might be fun to do this for stitching.

Monday 25 December 2017

2018 SALs and a Freebie

Regular readers of this blog will know about the Weavers Tapestry Band Sampler SAL that's due to start on the 3rd of January (If you didn't know about it you can read all about it here). I have been blown away by how many people are interested in this SAL!

Friday 22 December 2017

Friday Freebie: Gingerbread House

This is the last Friday before Christmas and my mind is dreaming of a gingerbread house! So I decided to design one this year instead of only dreaming of one.

This pattern is perfect to use up scraps of coloured threads or even for variegated threads! Those ones with short colourful colour changes would be perfect on the roof for example. As with all gingerbread houses it's a good time to have fun! Also if you have any buttons lying around you could add those if they are small enough, perhaps you have a snowman button who could go in front of, or instead of one of the peppermint flowers.

You can find the pattern here

I hope you have a wonderful Christmas - or a couple of restful days if you don't celebrate Christmas!

I'll see you next week with the next Friday freebie. Also keep an eye out for my SAL announcement soon - I have exciting plans for next year which I'm sure you'd like to know about!

Thursday 21 December 2017

Surprise Freebie: Secret Santa Christmas Star

It's not Friday and this isn't a Friday freebie! It's the pattern I used to make the Secret Santa for the yearly Stitching Pirates group over on deviant art and the recipient has said it's ok for me to share it!
I stitched mine on 12ct Aida as that's what I had to hand, though I wanted to use 14ct Aida.

Friday 15 December 2017

Friday Freebie: Stars in Star

I'm still making stars! I'm having so much fun with them and I've noticed some of you are too! If you check out Jess Griffin you will see what she's been up to stitching wise - a new Christmas stitch every day!

Friday 8 December 2017

Friday Freebie: Stars and Snowflakes

Last week I had so much fun with the star that I did three more - all with snowflakes! I couldn't decide which one to share so decided to share all three so YOU can choose which one you want to stitch.

Friday 1 December 2017

Friday Freebie: Star Tree

It's the first of December and Christmas is a mere 24 days away (eek!). This week's pattern is a star tree - or is it a tree star? Either way it's a star filled with trees! It's a little something to be used as an ornament or card - or anything you can imagine to make with it! 

Friday 24 November 2017

Friday Freebie: Carla's Pumpkin Pie

This week something a little different - A piece of pie! Not just any pie but Carla's! She was tormenting me earlier with a picture of her pie and was mean enough not to teleport some to me!

Friday 17 November 2017

Friday Freebie: Snowflake Ornament

This snowflake ornament was inspired by seeing people posting about the first snow of the season. It always surprises me that people get snow so early in the year, especially when I see that they are more or less on the same latitude as me and we are having weather that is just a bit too warm for snow.

Wednesday 15 November 2017

Weavers Tapestry Band Sampler SAL: The Border Pattern

Welcome to the first pattern of the Weavers Tapestry Band Sampler SAL: the border! As you may already know the weekly patterns that will fill the border will create one large band sampler designed using weavers draft patterns found on the Antique Pattern Library site which I transferred into a cross stitch pattern.

Saturday 11 November 2017

Surprise Freebies: Remembrance Day Poppies

This year to commemorate Remembrance Day I have designed two poppy patterns. The plan was to only make one but I ended up with two and decided to share both. The first you can see above is a simple poppy wreath shape with the 11 NOV backstitched.

Friday 10 November 2017

Friday Freebie: New Flowers

As you may have seen in my last post my stash has been enhanced with the contents of the DMC tin of 35 new flosses. Since their arrival they have been a bit noisy asking to be used for something as they didn't travel all this way to just land in a box and not get used.

Wednesday 8 November 2017

WIP Wednesday

As always I'm starting with my Vakje per Week. This time the pattern was a rather large one and my space rather tiny so instead of doing two whole and a partial shape I offset it all and did lots of partial ones.

Sunday 5 November 2017

Weavers Tapestry Band Sampler SAL: The Completed Border

Last time you saw the border it looked like this - and in the sunshine you can see the fabric's real colour, which you can't see below. Yesterday I stitched a whopping 1284 stitches - the most I have ever stitched!

Friday 3 November 2017

Friday Freebie: A Tiny Cookie

This week's Friday freebie is a tiny cookie pattern - it's just 17x17 stitches square so really lives up to it being called tiny! As to what such a small pattern can be used for... the options are just about endless.

Wednesday 1 November 2017

Wip Wednesday - A Two Week Wrap Up

Unfortunately not everything goes to plan in life and last week's WIP Wednesday blog was one of the casualties of this. This week I have succeeded at making the post so I hope you enjoy the pictures! As always I'm starting with the Vakje Per week which you can see has had 2 weeks worth of stitching since you last saw it.

Friday 27 October 2017

Friday Freebie: Box Hedge and Flowers

This week's Friday freebie was inspired by the traditional English box hedge gardens that have flowers in them as well.

Friday 20 October 2017

Friday Freebie: Weavers Tapestry Fob and Pincushion


This week's Friday Freebie is inspired by the weavers draft patterns found on the Antique Pattern Library site which I transferred into a cross stitch pattern. Some elements from this pattern can also be found on the Weavers Tapestry Band Sampler that I'm hosting as a SAL here (with a fb group too!), but not all.

Wednesday 18 October 2017

WIP Wednesday - Extended Version



It's been quite some time since I last did a WIP Wednesday post due to the summer holiday, some health issues and stitching up a storm trying to catch up and keep up with things - I even missed the TUSAL posts! Today is finally that post I keep starting and not completing due to lack of time to do the big ass post required for it.

Friday 13 October 2017

Friday Freebie: Mini Rainbow Sampler

This week's Friday freebie is as colourful as you can get in my opinion - a rainbow! This time I've made a fun little sampler that can be stitched up with those bits and pieces you have left over from kits or just from what you have in stash.

Friday 6 October 2017

Friday 29 September 2017

Friday Freebie: Purple Psalter

One of the rarest types of medieval manuscripts are the Purple Psalters, made with materials so expensive it was only the very, very rich who could afford to get one made for themselves or as gifts for others.

Tuesday 26 September 2017

A new big project: 2018 Weavers Tapestry Band Sampler SAL.


As with most big projects, time to plan and prepare is important so I'm starting this with lots of time to get ready for a year's worth of weekly pattern sections. The patterns will create one large band sampler designed using weavers draft patterns found on the Antique Pattern Library site which I transferred into a cross stitch pattern.

Friday 22 September 2017

Friday Freebie: Theodosius Hagia Sofia

Sometimes you can find the most amazing things carved in stone! This week's pattern is a prime example - it's a section of a carved archway that was in the Theodosius Hagia Sofia.

Friday 15 September 2017

Friday Freebie: French Lily

This week's pattern was inspired by another background in a medieval manuscript that I saw some time ago. I loved the tiny French lilies set in a grid of gold lines so decided to see if I could recreate it.

Saturday 9 September 2017

Friday Freebie: The Unexpected Edition

You are probably wondering why it's the unexpected edition! Well it's because this AM I didn't think I'd be able to access my patterns as my computer had decided it didn't like life the way it was for it and refused to even start up.

Saturday 2 September 2017

Fridayish Freebie - Wedding Background

Some of you may have noticed that I love using medieval manuscripts and art as inspiration for patterns - this is another of those times, and it is in fact the start of a small series of medieval inspired patterns I'm going to share here. Most of these patterns can be made any size you want as long as you stick to a repeat of the pattern.

Friday 18 August 2017

Friday Freebie: Cinderella Fob

Welcome to the last of the Mucha princess fobs! This pattern was inspired by the Mucha princess patterns Pinky the Pink has made, this one uses the colours of Cinderella which you can find here (if it hasn't sold out yet as it's a limited edition pattern). Pinky's etsy shop can be found here with more princesses and much, much more!

Friday 11 August 2017

Friday Freebie: Megara Fob


This pattern was inspired by the Mucha princess patterns Pinky the Pink has made, this one uses the colours of Megara which you can find here (if it hasn't sold out yet as it's a limited edition pattern). Pinky's etsy shop can be found here with more princesses and much, much more!

Friday 4 August 2017

Friday Freebie: Pocahontas

This week first the pattern then some personal stuff.  Those of you who saw all the Christmas in July patterns will have seen this week's pattern converted as a stocking (yes I made the fob pattern first!)

Monday 31 July 2017

Christmas in July: Day 31 Bonus - Silver and Grey

You didn't think you were finished already did you? Ha! I had one more pattern up my sleeve and thought I'd surprise you with it now. This one was inspired by one of the Ornament of the Month patterns I did 2 years ago: April

Christmas in July: Day 31 - Snow White

Welcome to the last day of the Christmas in July freebies! I can't believe I made it, it's been a lot of work, especially with me going off on holiday in the middle of it all. I hope you have enjoyed the patterns! Please do leave a message if you have started - or completed one or more of the patterns, you don't need to have an account anywhere to comment, though to share a photo you will need somewhere to host the image if you don't have a blog etc. to share it on.

Sunday 30 July 2017

Christmas in July: Day 30 - Rapunzel

Welcome to the penultimate day of Christmas in July! This pattern was inspired by the mucha princess patterns Pinky the Pink has made, this one uses the colours of Rapunzel which you can find here (if it hasn't sold out yet as it's a limited edition pattern). Pinky's etsy shop can be found here with more princesses and much, much more!

Saturday 29 July 2017

Christmas in July: Day 29 - Illuminated squares

Its day 29 of the Christmas in July freebies and that means there are only 2 more days left after today! Today's pattern is another of my beloved illuminated manuscript inspired patterns.

Friday 28 July 2017

Christmas in July: Day 28 - Jane

Hiya, good to see you again! This pattern was inspired by the mucha princess patterns Pinky the Pink has made, this one uses the colours of Jane which you can find here (if it hasn't sold out yet as it's a limited edition pattern). Pinky's etsy shop can be found here with more princesses and much, much more!

Thursday 27 July 2017

Christmas in July: Day 27 - White and Electric Blue

Welcome back! Today's colours are a totally in your face combination - electric blue on white really jumps out at you in a fun way. The blue is my absolute favourite DMC colour and one I used on one of my first patterns, so a colour I will never forget.

Wednesday 26 July 2017

Christmas in July: Day 26 - Cinderella

It's the 26th day of Christmas in July and here is the pattern I *know* some of you have been waiting for! Today's pattern was inspired by the Mucha princess patterns Pinky the Pink has made, this one uses the colours of Cinderella which you can find here (if it hasn't sold out yet as it's a limited edition pattern). Pinky's Etsy shop can be found here with more princesses and much, much more!

Tuesday 25 July 2017

Christmas in July: Day 25 - Sylvester

Merry Christmas in July! If this was December it would be prezzie day, sadly it's not, but you still get another free pattern from me! Today's pattern has cats!

Monday 24 July 2017

Christmas in July: Day 24 - Multicolour Cross Hatch

Welcome back! Today is the 24th day of Christmas in July and the pattern of the day is a multicolour cross hatch stocking. The pattern shows the colours on black but if you prefer you could do it on white too.

Sunday 23 July 2017

Christmas in July: Day 23 - Aurora

Welcome to Christmas in July day 23! This pattern was inspired by the Mucha princess patterns Pinky the Pink has made, this one uses the colours of Aurora which you can find here (if it hasn't sold out yet as it's a limited edition pattern). Pinky's etsy shop can be found here with more princesses and much, much more!