Summer 2013 souvenir...

As always when I've been off on holiday I pick up a stitching magazine with a kit of some sort to take home and embroider. This is the result of the Issue 268, Holiday 2013, Cross Stitcher magazine, free kit called Rory Raccoon. The flowers in the magazine were not yellow and gold but 2 shades of pink, however my pink aversion got the better of me and I changed it to 2 shades of yellow instead. I swapped dark pink (DMC 602) for the lighter yellow (DMC 973) and the lighter pink (DMC 604) for the darker orangey yellow (DMC 972)

I also didn't like how much empty space was at the bottom of the pattern so I added some additional flower buds, stems and leaves to fill it out a bit.When it was time to put the embroidery in the frame that was included in the kit I again did my own thing as I didn't have any fabric glue so couldn't glue the parts together as instructed.  I first stitched the embroidery with a running stitch (after putting a bit of muslin behind it to stop the green from showing through) to the back of the frame which is also felt. I then used some yellow floss and french knots to fix the front of the frame to the back of the frame which really ties the whole thing together in my opinion.

Number of colours: 7
Size of embroidery: 3 1/8" x 2 1/4"/7.9 x 5.7 cm
Frame: 5 1/2" x 4 1/8"/ 14 x 10.5
Design by: Lucie Heaton