8 Colour challenge - Part 8: The tombstone

I've been a bit slow with stitching the past few days so it took longer than usual to do the tombstone but it's done at last. I had another go at photographing the glow in the dark ghost - it's not been easy and I certainly have a few more experiments to go before I am happy with the result. Your eyes will initially try to tell you that the image below is black but if you look a bit longer you will see a hint of greenish yellow - this is an extreme close-up snipped to show the ghost so it's not the whole image.

Colours finished since the last update:
318 - Light steel grey
413  - Dark pewter grey

8 Colour challenge - Part 7: A ghost!

When thinking of how to use my glow-in-the-dark thread I couldn't help but think of SATW's Beer Ghost - it's just *so* cute! Here you can see him noticing the bottle of beer on the other side of the tree. Even though this looks finished as is it's not - I'll be extending the green to the right now and doing the next bit there.  I still need to work out how to photograph the glow in the dark effect - my attempts of photographing him in the dark failed. Even though I could see him, the camera couldn't.

Colours finished since the last update:
310 - black (will need a bit more of this later though)
E940 - Glow in the dark
Ecru - ecru
700 - Bright christmas green
890 - Ultra dark pistachio green

Working with: 
581 - moss green

8 Colour challenge - Part 6: tree completed.

 At last the tree is complete! It got a bit fiddly with some of the colours and I discovered a few stitches I'd missed before as somehow when there are lots of colours with only a few stitches I seem to overlook one or two. The red doesn't show as much as I'd expected but it's hiding in there in most of the leaves. I also can't count and thought there were 32 colours but actually there are 31.

Colours finished since the last update:
349 - Dark coral
356 -  Medium terra cotta
900 - Dark burnt orange
919 - red copper
920 - Medium copper
3772 - Very dark desert sand
3776 - Light mahogany

Next I get to do the bit with the glow in the dark thread!

8 Colour challenge - Part 5: tree 3/4 done

Yesterday evening I was on a roll and reached the 1/2 way mark of the tree and wasn't ready to stop yet so I just kept on going. I don't make evening photo's because they just make the image flat and washed out due to the flash/lighting. So I ploughed on and am now at the 3/4 mark of making the tree. I have to admit that it doesn't really look like all that much was done but then most of the colours I did were ones with less than 30 stitches each so the difference isn't all that noticeable. The colours in the tree I have left to do mostly have more than 30 stitches each so it will go a little slower.

These are the colours I used since the last update. At the top right is the purple you can just about see at the bottom left of the tree trunk in what will be a pile of leaves - it's used in a few other places but you can see it best there. I hope this is enough to call it using purple in the end result - we will see - even if it's not then I'll still be safe as I do use all the other colours as well and I only have to use 5.

Colours finished since the last update:
921 - copper
922 - Light copper
3777 - Very dark terra cotta
3778 - Light terra cotta
3790 - Ultra dark beige gray
3802 - Very dark antique mauve
3826 - golden brown
3827 - Pale golden brown
3830 - terra cotta
3853 - Dark autumn gold
3857 - Dark rosewood
3858 - Medium rosewood
3859 - Light rosewood
3860 - cocoa
3861 - Light cocoa
3862 - Dark mocha beige

8 Colour challenge - Part 4: tree 1/4 done

Believe it or not but these 8 colours have been used in the tree below mostly making up part of the leaves. The brown you already saw as the tree trunk in my last blog post. The tree now looks like this and although the leaves look more like blossom now they will eventually be more leaf like. As I more or less mentioned before - the tree itself will be using 32 of the 45 colours used in this embroidery which is why I am posting an update now that I've completed 1/4 of the tree colours.

Colours finished:

402 - Very light mahogany 

720 - Dark orange spice 

721 - Medium orange spice 

801 - Dark coffee brown. 

946 - Medium burnt orange 

947 - Burnt orange 

970 - Light pumpkin 

3340 - Medium apricot

8 Colour challenge - Part 3: Finished the first colour

I don't need to tell you what this will be when it's finished but what it does stand for is the first finished colour. The photo also shows the colours of the fabric when combined with embroidery thread - it's looking quite nice. Now that I have the framework down for the leaves I can go ahead and do the "gazillion" (well ok 31) colours that I need for them. I'm starting to get a misty night vibe from this.. lets see where this ends up!

Colour finished:
801 - Dark coffee brown.

8 Colour challenge - Part 2: The colours

These are the colours I'll be using for the 8 colour challenge entry.

As I mentioned yesterday I have to at least use the following colours:

• Black
• Orange
• Purple
• Green
• Silver
• Red
• Ecru
• Glow-in-the-Dark

 And I'm using all of the 8 colours! I'm using several greens and oranges. The red comes in the shape of 349 (3rd from the top left), the purple is trying to hide in this lot and pretend to be brown but it's a really antique mauve ultra dark 3802 and the black is of course 310 and the same goes for the silver (E168), glow in the dark and ecru so I'm meeting the 5 or more rule for this already *grin*. On top of that I'm also using some yellows, greys and browns.

Total number of colours: 45

The more colour orientated people reading this might say "But I can see peach! surely that's pink?" to which I'll cheerfully say - perhaps but it's orange enough for me to call it orange and anyway peaches are orangey yellow so I have no idea why someone decided to call this colour peach.

First biscornu

Inspired by seeing other people make them I decided to make one myself too - it couldn't be all that difficult to do now could it? After all I'm good at sewing and good enough at cross stitch to manage.

Finding a pattern I liked took a bit but I finally found the one at the top on les grilles de liselotte. I managed to see past the pink in the pattern to see that I liked it enough to make one myself. I changed the misc pinks to oranges (741, 742 and 947) and got going - this was the easy bit.

The difficult part was sewing the two pieces together. I was using 18 ct / 7 squares per cm Aida as I usually do and well.. with my eyes those backstitches are rather on the tiny side so I had trouble seeing where to put my needle. I had Mattsma's biscornu tutorials in front of me to assist but managed (as so often)to get my right and left mixed up so things went a tinsy bit wrong the first time round and I ended up one stitch too far past the corner. I also found that working away from me wasn't comfy so when I re-started I made sure I worked towards myself and after that things went better. It was really fiddly though at this size and I really recommend that people start with a lower count fabric as it gives you more to hold while sewing the sections together.

My bf watched with interest as I stuffed about 2 handfuls of of fabric snippets (too small to sew and it's a shame to waste it) which I always use for stuffing into it. I thought that would be enough but I have a feeling that a bit more could easily have fit lol.

I'm pleased with the corners - most were nice and pointy though the one I ended at isn't. I got these right thanks to Mattsma's tutorials.

Embroidery size of unsewn sections: 2 1/2" / 6,5 cm square each.

8 Colour challenge - Part 1: Preparing the fabric

I decided to enter another competition on Deviant Art - the 8 colour competition. The challenge is to use at least 5 of the following colours in an embroidery:

• Black
• Orange
• Purple
• Green
• Silver
• Red
• Ecru
• Glow-in-the-Dark

 I love the idea and had a think about what to do - what I came up with is a night time scene so I wanted a darker fabric to do the embroidery on. I don't have any dark fabric on hand and can't spare the cash for some so soon after my bedroom re-vamp so I decided to do a bit of witch style stuff in the kitchen and cooked up my own fabric dyes made with what I had in the house already.


I made "brown" with reduced coffee and some cornstarch to make it more spreadable and I made "black" with the extra, extra salty liquorice I had lying around the house that nobody liked. Unfortunately I made both a bit too thick so they didn't spread too well and were a bit lumpy on the fabric but since I was going for large sections of colour it was ok

Once I'd "painted" it all on I left it for about 30 minutes and then rinsed it off in a sink full of water and vinegar to set the dye. Then I removed as much water as possible and then ironed it dry.

The white square you see is the starting colour and as you can see the black didn't really take so well and just became a pale grey. The brown is a bit darker but overall for an experiment with something I've never done before this was a decent result.

I will be using this for the 8 colour contest embroidery - I think it will give it just that bit more depth than plain cream fabric would do and will certainly show off the glow in the dark thread I'm planning on using.

UFO #6 is completed!

This is the 6th UFO I have completed. It's Maria van Scharrenburg's  "water" themed embroidery: seashells (pattern id: 8475 F / 4915 E). It's 8 x 8 inches / 20 x 20 cm when completed and I had partially done the largest shell of the pattern before I set it aside sometime before October 2000. I can place the date so well as I'd kept the kit in it's original package and it had dog hairs in it from my last dog who died in October 2000 but it didn't have dog hairs from the dog I looked after for a couple of months in 2001.

If you wish to see the project as it progressed please check the September blog posts.

As I mentioned in earlier posts the image on the kit package is not the same colour as what I ended up with - I'm really rather disappointed as I bought the kit because of the greens and browns shown and wasn't expecting blue and pink shells. As I really rather dislike pink I'm less than happy with the result despite it being a decent pattern and if I'd known it had so much pink in it I wouldn't have bought it in the first place.

To save on searching for it the image is here:

The pattern itself is good, easy to read and the kit included plenty of floss to embroider with - I could probably manage to do most of a second version with what's left but I probably won't.

First TUSAL report: September

I hear you thinking WTF is a TUSAL??????  Well... it's a Totally Useless Stich-A-Long and I found out about it by accident while blog hopping a fortnight ago. Not even sure who's blog it was on - sorry, it was late.. what can I say...

Anyway basically what happens is that I put all the end bits I cut off while embroidering into a jar instead of the bin and make a photo once a month on the new moon. I'm a day late but well.. I didn't see Daffycat's blog post pop up till I was heading to bed and that reminded me that it was time.

This past fortnight I've been working on my seashells cross stitch as part of my "Finally Finishing the UFO's Project" - it's almost finished as I type this - just  half the border of cross stitches and backstitches to do! It's not a bad haul of threads in the jar especially as I've been ill on and off for over a week.

On to the next jar.. will be nice to be able to compare how much gets done and what it looks like month to month.

Shells 7 and 8

I finished all but the white on the brown shell after dark yesterday and as my eyes don't see so clearly in artificial light I decided to leave the white for daylight and got started on the smaller blue shell and the background bits at the bottom. All that is left is the second bit of coral and the border of cross stitches and the rest of the backstitches which I will do after I've finished the coral as I already moved the embroidery ring into position for the coral.

The observant viewer might notice the damage on the embroidery ring - that's from when I had a cockatiel 20 years ago and one of his favourites places to sit was on the ring while I did my cross stitching and occasionally he'd have a nibble on the wood. I like the ring too much to replace it and as the damage isn't rough and doesn't damage the fabric I still use it.

Shell 6

I didn't expect to finish this today as I have also been busy sewing an awning for the neighbours but it's hard work feeding a "bit" of fabric that's 7 1/2 yards x 4 yards through a sewing machine and even more hard work ironing the seams - my back doesn't like it a bit so as a result I got a lot of embroidery done. This shell was also supposed to be in shades of brown according to the packet image and as you can see it's not.

I'm going to do the shell in the middle next - fortunately it really does use browns hehe.

Shells 3 and 4

I finished the pink shell when it was too late to make a decent photo with the light available so I continued embroidering and made the blue shell as well. There was only a little bit of background to the right so I decided to add that first as well. I'm going to do some of the backstitching before moving on to the next shell - just to get some out of the way since I really don't enjoy doing it. I probably won't be adding a photo after completing the first lot of backstitches.

I'm about half way now with this embroidery if you exclude the frame of cross stitches and backstitches that need doing at the end.

Edit: I've done all the backstitching I can do so far and won't be adding a photo till I've completed the next shell which also appears to be rather on the pink side *grumble*. It's the top most left one.

And a bit of coral

The coral certainly does look a bit more greenish in this photo than it does in real life - not sure why though. Admittedly just at the bottom end there is a fair bit of darker teal but it stops about 10 stitches above the blue shell and becomes several shades of blue.

Next up: the smaller of two smaller shells below the blue shell - in the picture it looks orangy brown but in reality it's several shades of < ugh >  pink.

Seashells: second shell

Today I finished the second shell on the embroidery - it seems unfinished at the lower edge but there will be 2 more shells in front of it that will fill in the empty space.  One thing I'm noticing is that the embroidery is so much lighter than the photo on the kit. The blue shell is also a lot more blue than the picture where it shows more as a blue/green colour. I do however rather like the blue shade it is so I'm happy.

For comparison: this is the scanned image from the kit, which will also help you see where I am with the embroidery.

I have to say that I had forgotten how nice it is to do cross stitching on even weave - it used to be my favourite embroidery fabric.so I'm enjoying this very much, especially after the horrors of the uneven linen from the butterfly.

Next section I'm going to do is the coral in the background between the two shells at the top right, which will finish the top right section of the embroidery.

UFO #6: seashells

Yesterday I picked the 6th UFO to work on - It's Maria van Scharrenburg's  "water" themed embroidery: seashells (pattern id: 8475 F / 4915 E). It's 8 x 8 inches / 20 x 20 cm when completed and I had partially done the largest shell of the pattern. This afternoon I finished the largest shell and decided that it was high time I updated my bog and started keeping it updated - hopefully I can get into the swing of things again :) I'll update every time I finish another shell.

I feel much better now I've started working on older stuff and getting it done. I do still need to either frame or otherwise finish the finished embroideries but well.. that's not something I have to worry about too much yet :)

Another mass update

I seem to be having a great deal of trouble remembering to make updates here in-between all the finishing of projects that I have been doing.I need to remember that just throwing my photo's at Deviant art isn't enough and I need to also update here.

So here is what I've been up to since my last update:

This time something different.. inspired by the #ArtisanCraft creative craft challenge. I found these plastic button things that you could embroider in the sewing shop when I was getting eyelets for the corset I made last week (no photo yet - I'd taken it with me to England last week and mailed it home as it was too heavy for my suitcase - damned Ryan Air max carry on weight restrictions!) and thought they'd be fun to play with, they are but they are also rather fiddly to hold as well.

They are 7/8 inch - 2,25 cm across and embroidered with a full strand of DMC in 3 shades of blue and ecru.

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Happy birthday DA!

Sources and inspiration:

The DA llama badges
The DA logo
The DA 10 birthday badge that I changed to show a 12
I was inspired the colour of Peridot (August's birthstone) when I made the "12" badge green.

I made the flapping cloaks of the super llama's different in an attempt to show that they were indeed flapping.

I mounted the embroidery on a pale pink card and gave it a slightly smaller blue glossy card border as the front of the card.

Sizes:

Complete Embroidery: not quite 3 1/4" by a smidge over 4"
Colours used overall: 84
Complete card: 5 7/8" x 7 3/8"

Llama's :
18 x 15 stitches each
Brown has 30 colours, albino has 32 colours
7/8" x 1" each

"12" Birthday badge:
17 x 26 stitches
23 colours
1" x a smidge over 1 3/8"

DA Logo:
23 x 23 stitches
2 colours
a smidge over 1 1/4 " square

"Happy Birthday" message:
57 x 23 stitches
1 colour (I just love variegated thread!)
3" x a smidge over 1 3/8 "

All sizes are given Width x height, this also applies to the stitch numbers.
Patterns available on request.
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Oh wow!! I won 3rd place with this! Thanks!!

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I revamped my bedroom because the bed had broken and I thought it was high time I painted the walls since it still had the decorations from when I painted it for oldest when he was 2 and moved into the room. The photo's below show the room the evening it was more or less finished

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I started finishing my UFOs (UnFinished Objects) to finally get them done. 

This is the first of my UFO's that I've completed.

I have no idea when I started this but it was a good 6 years ago at the very least. It was less than half finished when i picked it up again and took me about a day to complete. I finished it at last today

It's the Lanarte kit 36016 - I left out the word "Narcissus" to the right because I don't like that kind of thing in embroideries.

Stats:
16 colours
3" x almost 4 1/2 " / 7,6 cm x 11,5 cm

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The dog rose is one of my favourite roses - I love the smell and will sniff the flowers *even though* they give me a nasty allergy attack afterwards (yes I know.. I just can't help myself lol)

This is the second UFO I've completed in my attack of the UFO's and one which I was dreading for some reason - it was really easy to do in the end and only took me a couple of hours to complete. The frame was part of the kit (Permin of Copenhagen kit 13-0172)

Stats:
10 colours
1 thread over the weave
1 3/4" x 2 5/8"/ 4,5 x 6,5 cm

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This was made for the #stitchingpirates Tiny Pillow Cross Stitch Contest! . I was planning on something rather larger and more complicated but time was against me I decided that since this was a mini pillow competition I'd make mine *really* small

As one of my main goals in art is to use what I have on hand as much as possible I applied the same principals to this project.

Materials used:
Embroidery fabric: a 2 1/2 inch/ 6,5 cm scrap of 18 count/7 squares per cm white Aida
DMC floss in 12 colours: 699, 700, 701, 702, 703, 704, 740, 741, 742, 743, 744, 745
A 2 1/2 inch/ 6,5 cm scrap of Bali batik
Stuffed with mini scraps of quilting fabric

Stats
Finished size: 2"/5 cm
Number of stitches: 1024
Size of corner tassels 1/2 " / 1,25 cm

I have for a long time thought of doing something with quilt blocks in embroidery and although I haven't actually done much with Log cabins in quilting I do love the resulting look of them. I made this pattern based on 4 blocks of the "uneven log cabin" (an example of the quilt pattern is here: [link] ) turned so that the skinny "logs" were all in the centre and the wider ones made the outside edges. I had originally planned on adding backstitches in black to show where the "seams" would be but when I did some on the embroidery it looked horrid so I spent an age removing all the backstitches and wished I'd had time to do a sample first.

My stitches aren't as even as usual for 3 reasons:
1) I'd used a piece of Aida that was too small for any of my embroidery rings and so couldn't put it under tension to keep it even and had to make do with the way I held the bit of fabric.
2) My hands didn't like the above and complained bitterly but time was too short to put it away for a few days as I was expecting to need at least a day for all the backstitches that I didn't do in the end.
3) When removing the backstitching some of the time I caught a stitch and pulled it - I have done my best to return them to where they should be but it didn't always work and 2) means I can't go back and re-do stuff as I need to rest my hands.

Solution for 1 will be to use a larger piece of Aida next time OR baste it to some fabric and then put it in the frame (didn't remember that trick till I was writing this lol)
The solution to the other two is to start sooner, or choose to wait for the next competition if I'm too short of time.

I chose the colour of the backing fabric because it had the colours of the embroidery in it.

I made 1/2" tassels with the darkest embroidery thread as I like how that looks on pillows. It was a bit of a challenge to make them look nice and even as this was the first time I'd ever made tassels.

After I'd finished the embroidery I washed and pressed it and then carefully attached the tassels to the seam allowance of the embroidery to keep them in place while I sewed and after it was finished. I then pinned the backing fabric to the embroidery and hand sewed it all in place leaving what turned out to be a too small a hole to turn the stiff Aida through easily but with a bit of patience, a *lot* of easing and a chopstick I was able to turn it the right way round.

Next time I will first sew on a border of normal fabric before sewing it to the back as that will mean that the side seams are all the same fabric strength and stiffness and it will make the corners easier to turn and more pointy (although with this pillow I am not too displeased with how the corners turned out ) I will also leave a larger opening to turn through.

Keeping the work the same way round was a bit of a challenge as it looks the same from every angle so in the end I used a bit of thread to baste a couple of stitches to the top so I'd know which way round it was. With the frame on I don't have this issue as it's easy to tell which way is up due to the closure.

Overall I'm reasonably happy with the results

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Edit:

WOW!

I won joint first prize with *pinkythepink !! Thanks!!

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Last July Project Educate on Deviant Art held a Artisans Crafts week and one of the things there was the "Try something new challenge" I fully intended to join in by making a book myself but time ran out on me and I didn't get round to it.

Having decided to make a book myself I didn't want to set this aside as a project and now that I had a bunch of other stuff out of the way (such as my mini pillow and holiday) I thought I'd try my hand at making a Coptic bound journal. I wasn't sure what to do for the cover or pages till I saw the monthly AC challenge maps and lost places which sparked my imagination.

Before I started I read just about every tutorial in the tutorial section and watched some video's on youtube as seeing how a stitch is done is much easier than trying to work out how the drawing was done.

As one of my main goals in art is to use what I have on hand as much as possible I looked around the house for old maps and travel books looking for maps to include on the cover. Unfortunately I only had a couple of small pamphlets that were left over from a biking holiday + from a day trip to a town as well as an old guide to the Algarve so I wasn't able to use a single map for all of it. I used the pamphlets for 3 of the outer covers and some cut out maps from the guide book for the front inner cover. I allowed the folds of the maps to show as it adds texture to the completed journal and shows that real maps were used.

I didn't have much paper of the same colour to hand so I decided to choose the colours based on the different colours you see on maps:
Green for the woods/fields
Yellow for the main roads
White for the smaller roads

All the signatures are made from 4 sheets of paper folded in half to make 8 leaf signatures. I had enough to make 2 signatures in green, 2 in yellow and one in white.

I used the back of a writing pad for the thicker cardboard for the covers.

In my search for stuff I had found an old awl I'd been given at the same time as a 1903 cobblers treadle, it was pretty blunt but there was also a neat little whetstone in the box so I first learnt how to sharpen an awl before using it to make the holes for the stitching. I used the eyelet making tool that I'd used for my corset to make the holes in the covers.

I used DMC embroidery floss (colour 798) for the sewing so I could match the colour of the thread to the blue of the maps (used to make routes) and added some beads and other bits to both of the top holes to add a bit of interest to the book and helps one remember what is the top. I tried to use things that one might have found lying around while travelling: shells, leaves, a coffee bean, a "silver" bead.

I had fun making this and am glad I decided to try my hand at book making

Stats:
Height: 6 1/4" / 16 cm
Width: 4 1/2" /11,5 cm
Thickness: 5/8"/ 1,5 cm

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This is the 3rd UFO I have hauled out of the box and finished.
It was supposed to be a "quilt" with a width 3 of the square patterns and a hight of 4 of them. The pattern has a 1995 copyright on it and I think I must have bought it around that time - not much later than 1996 anyway.

I had to start with a bit of stitch removal because I'd miscounted and some of the stitches were one stitch too far to the left AND I'd been confused by the colours because the kit had said that the "blue" had the white (that I didn't use in the end) in it - in my kit the green did - and with the green and blue so close It was easy to be confused.

I really didn't like the way the green and blue background colours (yes there are two) almost blend together because they are (IMO at least) badly chosen - there should have been more contrast. The quilter in me also didn't like that the darkest green or blue "flowers" are don't have identical bits as this should be the case in the quilt pattern. The green lower bit is filled in where it shouldn't be and in the blue the bottom right one is one stitch shorter per row. The pattern itself is well made and very clear - I have no complaints about the quality of the printed work, just the floss colour choices and the design of the pattern.

I could have "fixed" all this but I'd already started this and didn't want to have to rip even more out to make it "perfect" so I decided to at least make something out of it so I made another mini pillow.

The green in the border (and backing) was a true find - with the green and blue so close it reads as the colour I chose for the borders, even though the colour isn't anywhere in the embroidery. I made the tassels myself again - this time from the medium green and blue from the leftover thread from the kit. The pillow was again completely hand stitched and if you look carefully - well ok you don't have to look *that* carefully to see them - you can see my tiny stitches near the bottom.

Stats and info
The pattern is: Four Winds (Amish Quilts II Kit) CSK-358 by Cross My Heart
Colours used: 6
Aida: Black 14 count / 6 squares per cm
Stitched area: 2 5/8 inch / 6,5 cm square
Stitches: 4 x 18 stitches square with a lattice of 2 stitches wide left empty between them for a total of 1296 cross stitches.
Pillow: 3 3/4 inch / 9,5 cm square
Tassels: 1 1/4 inch / 3 cm long

I'm happy it's finished and glad I decided to make it into a mini pillow instead as the perfectionist in me was screaming quietly the whole time I was working on this.

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One of my youngest son's teachers got married and he wanted to give her something "mummy made" so I dug around and found a partially made wedding bells and rings card that was embroidered on perforated embroidery paper ( this stuff: [link] )

It was supposed to have a lacy frame but youngest insisted I used E 5200 - a light effects perlescant white which was slow going as it does tend to tangle more than normal thread even when put on the needle the way DMC says and as I couldn't pull it tight it was horribly uneven. After 4 days of hell and only a small amount done (well small for me - I usually work faster) I gave up trying to do that and just cut out the bells and rings bit that I had done. I then glued them to a pale pink card and let youngest write in the card himself.

The pattern and perforated paper comes from DMC collection book number 6 that was printed in 1994.

I'm afraid I forgot to measure the work before I let youngest take it to school but the bells embroidery is about 2 1/2 inches square.

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The 5th UFO that I have done as far as I'm going to. It's the blue butterfly pattern by Thea Gouverneur (pattern #1024) and is supposed to have a stalk and another leaf and a gazillion back stitches but I had reached the point of call it done or throw it away as I have developed a deep lying hate for uneven rough woven linen (and I already hated backstitching anyway) I have discovered by careful comparison of the embroidery I did and the pictures online of the pattern that my colours are also not completely correct and if I had continued they would have continued to happen - some of the mistakes i have won't show now because I didn't do the stalk.

Another thing that disappointed me was that the pattern is hand drawn and the symbols are not always clear and sometimes even completely missing so I had to guess what to put in that empty place - basically I filled it with whatever colour I had on my needle when I noticed it unless it looked out of place to do so.

In the end I just called it quits and stopped - I have a feeling that this will become part of something at a later date - when I get past the hate for the linen

Size of embroidery: 6 x 4 1/2 " / 15,25 x 10,1 cm