Friday Freebie: Fob a Month - March

Welcome to the third instalment of the Fob a Month for this year. The theme of the year has become flowers - though it wasn't an intentional thing when I started this at the beginning of the year, I'm quite happy to have decided to go this route. This month's flower inspiration is the hyacinth - I have blue grape hyacinths growing in my garden and they are so very pretty. I love the normal ones too, but I can't grow them as they set off my allergies a lot more.

This time real stitching instead of the art from the pattern maker! I started a bit too far to the left on this bit of fabric but I had enough space to add two backs and I realised that when stitched on 18ct the fob is actually pretty tiny. However I don't let small things like that bother me and just stitched two backs for what I dubbed the tiny fronts.

Once cut out you can see how little waste I had from the 9" x 3 1/4" bit of fabric I used (though I didn't cut it off till after stitching as it's easier to use the hoop then) I could actually do another fob front and back on the biggest of the pieces left over!

And this is what I did with the two dinky fobs! I used a single cord made from approximately 50" of craft floss - I used the width of my tablet to measure - saved looking for my quilting ruler hehe - and put one end in each fob as well as a mini tassel (made with my letter opener) on the opposite end to finish them off.

I haven't had time to finish the pincushion yet - my hands had issues holding such tiny fobs and whinged a lot.

The fabric is Jodyri Designs July 2015 Limited Edition - Holmsey Hare, 18ct Aida which has blues and greens and a bit of yellow in it. The beads I used along the edges are TOHO TR-11-168 Trans-Rainbow Lt Sapphire.

This month uses a blended thread - this isn't scary! All you do is take one strand of 3839 and one strand of 3840 and use them as if they were two strands of the same colour - that's all there is to it!
If you do not normally railroad (stitch in such a way that your threads are parallel - not my thing, I like my threads to look like they are just one thread) this is a GOOD thing this time! By not watching how your thread falls you will end up with a lovely mottled look where you stitch with the blended thread - its sooo pretty!

You can find the pattern here

Have a great weekend! I'll see you next week Tuesday with the next instalment of the Weavers Tapestry Band Sampler!