The not so very Friday Freebie

This pattern was inspired by the Mucha princess patterns Pinky the Pink has made, this one uses the colours of Snow White 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!

A new series of freebies!

It's been a while since I've posted anything let alone a freebie here (though I do have an ongoing project on deviantArt where I give a free pattern a month, but more on that another time), so I thought I'd start things off with a freebie!

The Patchwork Sampler - Part 3

It's been a while, mostly because my health has not been too brilliant lately and I've not had much energy left to do fun things like write blogs, I have however managed to do some more stitching and today I'll show you the progress of my Patchwork Sampler.

The Patchwork Sampler Project - Part 2

This little thing is a mere 29 x 17 stitches and says "I aten't dead" which my spell checker firmly says is spelled incorrectly. Which is correct but then Granny Weatherwax isn't the best of writers and doesn't know much about correct spelling - the message was an important one as she often went borrowing (putting her "self" into animals and borrowing their bodies) and she didn't want to be mistaken as dead. Those of you who have not read any of Terry Pratchet's Discworld books, and the witch ones in particular are probably a bit confused and all I can say is go forth and read them! I use them as a cure for feeling down in the dumps and I am certain they have saved me from more than one depression as it's hard for feeling down in the dumps to progress to depression when you are laughing so much you cry.

The Patchwork Sampler Project - Intro and first part.

Over on deviantArt #StitchingPirates is having another competition, this time the theme is "sampler". Although I already have a band sampler going I want to make something just for the competition. I have decided to dig into my bag of scrap bits and see what I can make with them. I am going to keep to a seam allowance of 3 stitches (so 3 squares of Aida or 6 threads of evenweave) and backstitch a line which will later be used to whip stitch the sections together. The line will also help me see where I need to stop stitching the patterns used on each bit.

Frosty

Earlier this year Carla sent me a lovely box with a whole load of lovely things in it, one of them was a Mill Hill kit for Frosty Snowman (Buttons & Beads Winter series - MH14-0304), He's such a character that I couldn't wait to start him and I had a lot of fun stitching him too.

Easter Eggs 3 & 4

As you may have read in my previous post I'm on an Easter egg ornament stitching binge while stitching up the 6 Easter egg patterns NevaSirenda has made available using her Ukrainian heritage as inspiration. The egg above is the third egg and second largest of them all which I finished into a 3 5/8" x 2 1/4" egg. It was the most complicated of the eggs due to the many colour changes so it's taken me the longest of all of them to stitch. I used yellow silver lined seed beads to stitch it together.

Easter Ornament #2 & more

I had so much fun stitching up NevaSirenda's first ornament that I continued on to make her second one, the 2012 ornament. As you can see this too is designed with her Ukrainian heritage in mind and it's just as lovely as the first! They are so nice and fast to stitch up, it takes me longer to finish them as an ornament than it does to stitch as the finishing is not my favourite bit.

Happy Easter!

Easter is one of those times of year that deserves it's own ornaments but somehow I get round to doing that even less than I did with Christmas ornaments before last year's ornament of the month project. Yesterday I decided this had to change and chose to do one of the Easter patterns NevaSirenda on deviantArt has created for Easter using her own Ukrainian heritage as the inspiration for the patterns and colours for them. She makes one every year and every year I told myself "I must make this" and then not get round to it. Now I have!

So much to catch up on!

Last month I had high hopes of getting all caught up with things I wanted to post and then some... and then I got floored by the flu ugh...  there went my plans.

So... back to *trying* to catch up on what I haven't posted yet, and posting the things I made after my last post here. One day I may even succeed hehe.

Hello Monday!

It's not often that Monday brings good things, it brings the end of the weekend for most people, which means getting up at ugh o'clock if you are not fortunate enough to be an early bird, so I thought I'd brighten up the start of the week with something nice to embroider - not cross stitch this time but blackwork, using a traditional pattern worked in 3 bright greens which will brighten anyone's day!

A quick little something for the weekend

People who know me know I'm a bit of a fan of Pinky's work, even though I don't like stitching people, I do love the things she makes, and I admire them from afar. Last time she brought out a series of princesses I made some scissor fobs with the colours and this time I will probably do the same for all 3. I am however starting with just the 1 now - Princess Mulan - which Pinky made using original artwork by Hannah Alexander, you can find the pattern here: Pinky the pink's Etsy
Please note that as the patterns are limited to just 50 of each so you may find that the pattern is sold out.

WIP Wednesday

I thought I'd use today to give a bit of an update as to what I'm actually working on, and also share a few recent finishes.

First of all I'll start with the photo at the top, it's Theresa Wentzler's Castle Ridge that I started last year on January 1st at the stroke of midnight. The last time you saw it it looked like this:

I picked it up again on Sunday and as you can see I have made quite a bit of progress since then - when I;ve finished the bit I'm working on now I'll have done ~1000 additional stitches. What I had done before was roughly 800 stitches. I plan on working on this till Saturday when I will pick up the next project, probably Mike's Mushrooms, but I'll update about that at a later date.

Before I picked this up on Sunday I spent around a week working on another project The "a border a week" better known in The Netherlands as "randje per week" I was planning on keeping up as best as I could but it wasn't to be, so many other projects pushed this out of the way. The last photo I have of this that was posted on the WIP page of the blog is this one: 

Made some time in the spring. I worked on and off on it in between other stuff when I needed something simple to work on. It now looks like this after last week's work on it:

The different motifs were ones I added myself, the butterfly and ravens are both from old magazine cuttings I have that were originally in other colours, the lizard I found on this site: amintkipattan.blogspot.com (linked to the page with the pattern) I'm not certain which language this is but the language of cross stitch is universal and I'm sure you will enjoy the patterns this designer offers too!

Another thing I have been working on recently is crochet. I am currently working on a purple and black hooded cowl for my oldest son. It doesn't look like much yet, but I'm only on the 4th round so that's to be expected.

I'm using Stylecraft DK special, the shade you see here is 1425, Emperor although it's a bit richer/darker in person. Purple is such a difficult colour to photograph. I'll be adding some details with the black I have of the same make and ending up with some rows of black too. It was mean and decided to be an infinity cowl, which I tried very hard to avoid, but somehow managed anyway. it has made the adding of the desired pattern more difficult but I'll muddle my way through. I started with a chain of 300 so it's pretty big.

Time for a couple of recent finishes!

First of all is the pesky backstitching issue I had with the spray of Jasmine when I used the colours in the pattern they just didn't show up at all, probably because I chose a green linen and not the asked for white Aida.

Ripping it out was so difficult it ended up in the drawer of doom and sat there till I unearthed it last weekend. I decided on the colours to use and I'm ok with the result but even now it's not as obvious as I'd have wanted, however I still dislike this piece as much as I did last time I worked on it, so disappointing. Interestingly enough the linen looks almost grey in this picture, which it definitively isn't in reality as it's a lovely pale green. This will now be moved to my completed list.

Then there is the ornament pattern I wanted to do for the Halloween SAL with Leonore and the gang, which didn't really go as well as planned due to the enormous amount of other things that needed to be stitched. When you last saw it it looked like this:

Some time in January I finally completed the last stitches, I'm not yet sure how i want to finish this so I'm leaving it as is for now.

Because I didn't want a stripy effect from the threads I'd worked the cross stitch area's in a circle instead of rows. I'm quite happy with the way this turned out.

That's all for now - see you next time!

It's been a while

A long, long while. December was crazy busy and January somehow became the month of recovery. I don't talk about it much but my health isn't too brilliant so after crazy busy times I need recovery time and this time it took a whole month.

During the month I had time to reflect, as one does in January, on what I'd been up to last year and what I want to do this year. One thing I realised is that back to back stitching deadlines are not for me. Yes it's fun making something new every 2 weeks - the ornaments of the month that I posted on the Nerd Central Command International website and the fob a month I posted here but then stopped doing due to lack of time and energy, though I did plan on continuing with them it somehow didn't happen 3 months in a row. I'm going to continue giving free patterns here, but not on a schedule. This will give me more time to make things I want to make and not have to worry about specific things that people are expecting me to make.

One thing I have been playing with as a plan is making 3-D ornaments and this I really want to do as I think it will be fun. So look out for them, and the free patterns, during the coming year.

The other things I want to work on this year are my WIPS, With all the deadlines last year they got left by the wayside and some are in danger of becoming UFOs *yikes*

I will continue joining in with competitions that are hosted on the deviantart group #stitchingpirates. The current one is called Gamers Delight and I have a nice plan for my entry, which will be a creature from the Doctor Who: Legacy game I enjoy so much, but don't play as much as I'd like as I can't stitch and play at the same time. I hope to post almost daily updates on this project once I start it.

I will be blogging about how to make an almost T.A.R.D.I.S. like bag, a bag that can hold so much more then it looks like it should be able to carry, which the Harry Potter fans might see as a bag with an Undetectable Extension Charm, much like Hermiome Granger's beaded bag, but not as big on the inside. The important bit about this bag is that it meets RyanAir's rules about the second bit of hand luggage so it can carry extra stuff when travelling. This will be the first thing I blog about as I do have  deadline for it - in less than 2 weeks from today it has to be ready for the recipient to collect it.

After the wall of text it's high time I gave you something nice to look at so here are some pictures of things I finished but have not yet blogged about.

Ornament of the Month - October

Ornament of the Month November

Ornament of the Month - November

The last 3 are all Ornaments of the Month for December.

This was going to be the Fob a Month pattern for November but alas it was not posted in time for that, however I will give the pattern soon.

I don't think  I ever got round to posting this either but.. not only did I complete this but I also won first prize for finishing this first in the speed stitching contest!

I have a few more things to post but they are still on the way to the intended recipient and as they are a surprise and I know at least one of them reads this blog I'm going to wait till after they arrive to share them.

That's all for now.. I'll be back soon with the start of the bag project!

Ornament of the Month - December

This is the final post with the ornaments of 2015. December has 3 different birthstones associated with it depending on where you look. Tanzanite, Blue Topaz and Blue Zirconia and as usual I have made a pattern for each.

Ornament of the Month - November

November has well and truly started and it's ornament time! November's birthstones are Citrine and Yellow Topaz. I was amazed to find that Citrine is actually darker than yellow topaz and my mind keeps telling me that the darker ornament should be the Yellow topaz one hehe.

Hand dying fabric with Dylon fabric paint

Many moons ago, including at least 2 blue and a blood moon, @Dylon_UK asked bloggers if they were interested in using their dye and I thought it would be great fun to play with dye so contacted them as instructed. I was overjoyed when they said I was in, and *may* have overlooked that they were sending me paint instead of the dye I thought they were sending - but then I only know Dylon from dye and not paint. They were wonderful and asked me which colours I wanted and I couldn't choose so said "surprise me" and boy was I surprised!

Initially I was full of idea's but I can't actually paint so kept on hitting the brick wall of "this looks awful". So I ended up putting it aside as a project till I did get an idea. I'm glad I did in the end as I did get an idea of what to do and it's completely out of the box, which is more my style anyway when it comes to crafting.

If anyone reading this thinks this is a complaint then please don't as this is just me explaining why it took me so many months to get this blog post written as promised. I love a challenge and this was certainly that!

So just to be clear: although Dylon kindly sent me the paints I used, the way I used them and what I have written are entirely my own thoughts, ideas and opinions.

With that bit over it's time to tell you what I did with the paints... I used them to hand dye embroidery fabric! It might seem a bit odd but I found it works really well.

Materials:

• Dylon fabric paint, I used royal blue (8) and turquoise (28) but any colour of the normal range works well.
• Small containers to mix the paint in
• Spoons or something else to stir with, one per colour paint you make
• Fabric - I used 18ct and 20ct Aida embroidery fabric
• Paintbrush
• Optional: plant spray that hasn't been used to spray chemicals.

Experiments made before I got started: drops, swirls and stripes

Notes:

• Dylon fabric paint was NOT made to be used like this and results may vary according to the material you use the paint on.
• Dylon fabric paint for dark fabric does not like being diluted and is therefore not suitable for this method.
• Before starting it's important to protect your work surface as this is going to get a bit messy. I put down a layer of newspaper and followed that with a plastic shopping bag I had cut open - a bin (garbage) bag works well too - just make sure you have plenty of space around the fabric you use.
• Any creases in the news paper or plastic bag can result in the paint pooling which can affect the end result.
• When I started this it was a huge experiment so I started on a few scraps of 18ct Aida I had left over from another project, I suggest you play around on some scraps first to see what pattern you like before working on a larger project. 
• If the paints are not spreading enough either use a plant spray filled with water or dip your fingers in water and splash that on the fabric and the paint will spread more.
• Once mixed the paint keeps for a week or so if you keep it covered (or if you forget just add water and mix well)

Instructions:

• First you need to mix your paints. 1/2 a coffee spoon (about 2-3 ml) mixed with a tablespoon of water makes the paint thin enough to work with. Stir the mixture till all the paint is diluted
• You can mix colours! I made 4 colours using the 2 paints I chose to use: 
• Just royal blue
• Just turquoise
• 1 part royal blue and 2 parts turquoise
• 2 parts royal blue and 1 part turquoise
• Hand wash your fabric to remove any sizing or other chemicals from the production process so that the fabric takes the dye.
• If you wring the fabric you might create creases which will affect the dye result, if this is what you want go for it, otherwise hold it up for a bit to let most of the water drip out.
• You need to keep the fabric wet to let the paint spread.
• Give the paint another stir before starting, this means that any bits that you missed earlier will be mixed in.
• I used a small paintbrush to make the spots and drops on the fabric.

• Start with one colour and cover the fabric with spots before moving on to the next colour
• Keep adding colours till you are happy with the result, remember that as it dries the colours will continue to spread.

I added more paint after this but sadly forgot to take a photo.

• It will take quite some time for the fabric to dry so it's best to leave it overnight to dry.
• Heat set the fabric according to the instructions on the paint.
• Hand wash, dry and iron again to remove any creases from washing and you are ready to use your fabric for whatever you wish!
• You can see the result I got from this at the top of this post.

I also experimented with hand dying embroidery floss... but that's something for another post.

I hope you enjoyed this post, if you do use this to dye your own fabric I'd love to see your results!

Fob a Month - 8

This month's fob is fortunately only a day late, which is quite an improvement on last month.

With autumn on our doorstep my mind turned towards that as a theme, I chose a toadstool as that is really one of the more visible things you can see that herald autumn other than the falling of leaves. I used a lovely picture by ky-sta over on deviantArt which can be found here: Red Mushrooms 9 and did 2 things with it.

The first thing I did was do a direct pattern conversion and then reduce the colours from around 100 to a "mere" 43. I stitched this and then added small beads to create the dots of the toadstool.

The second thing I did was use the picture as an underlay over which I then placed the colours over the top to create a pattern with just 15 colours, which I also stitched.

The results are 2 different toadstools made from the same picture using mostly the same colours made into a fob. Because I chose to use brown 28ct jobelan the fob is again rather on the large side but it does make it about the right size to use as an ornament as well.

The fob is 3" round. The realistic toadstool is 29 x 28 stitches. The stylised toadstool is 29 x 25 stitches.

What you need to make the example above:

• 2 pieces of 5 1/2" square 28ct brown jobelan
• DMC in the colours on the patterns
• Mill Hill Magnifica colour: 10010
• Your stuffing of choice
• Bordeaux craft thread for the cord
• White rick rack: 11 1/2" long and about 5/16" wide
• Water soluble pen
• Matching thread to sew
• Contrasting thread to baste with

You can download the patterns here: Realistic toadstool - Stylised toadstool

 

Instructions: Stitch one or both of the toadstools onto the centre of the jobelan.

Randomly stitch the beads onto the realistic toadstool as the spots.

Use a 3" round biscuit/cookie cutter and a water soluble pen to mark a circle on the back each embroidery, making sure to keep the embroidery centred.

Use the contrasting thread to baste the rick rack onto the front of one of the embroideries, use the line on the back as your guide and make sure the rick rack is centred on the line (a bit fiddly but not too difficult) overlap the ends a little and make sure you tuck the endings into the seam line.

Cut the circle out making sure to leave a 1/4" seam allowance.

Pin the cord in the top centre of the embroidery making sure the have the loop placed on the embroidery and the ends sticking out, as you don't want the loop on the inside of your ornament when stitched *wink*

Place the two sides right sides together and pin into place making sure to line up the circles.

Starting at the bottom stitch the 2 sides together carefully making sure to sew through the rick rack and leaving about 1 1/2" to turn - don't remove the basting thread yet!

Snip the seam allowance making sure not to go too close to the sewing line and carefully turn your work the right way round.

Check to see if all is sewn down properly before removing the basting thread and sewing the fob closed.

I hope you enjoy this pattern, please do share a link to yours if you make it!

The very delayed... Fob a Month - 7

A month late but nevertheless here it is...

The reason it's late is mostly that when the fob was due I was in the middle of redecorating my living room and somehow after that was done I didn't get round to finishing it.

This month's fob was the brainchild of my bf who wanted to have a go at designing a cross stitch pattern as well. I made the actual pattern but the idea of it and what elements to use were his decisions. With Doctor Who starting the new season the day after this fob was due he wanted to make something that reflected the show and the time of year it started. The stories are adventures in space and time so the clock represents time and the star sign represents space, with Virgo being the star sign at the time of the first episode of the season with the added effect of hands of a clock which was quite unintentional.

The fob is 3" square. 46 stitches square.

What you need to make the example above:

• 2 pieces of 5 1/2" square 14ct black Aida
• Kreinik #4 braid: 001L, 002 and 012L
• Your stuffing of choice
• Black craft thread for the cord

You can download the pdf pattern here: Fob a Month - Main pattern
You can download a clock version here: Fob a Month - Clock version

Notes:

• If you prefer a clock use the alternate pattern given, remember you can set the clock to any time you like by changing the direction of the hands.
• If you would rather use another star sign go for it! Almost any star chart on the internet can be used to make it. 

 

Instructions: Stitch the pattern in the centre of the square of Aida, doing the back stitches and last of all the French or colonial stitches. I always do colonial stitches as they are easier to do.

I used the usual method for making a biscornu and started by doing an outline of 42 backstitches per side 3 stitches away from the finished cross stitch. On the front I used copper Kreinik, on the back gold and the 2 sides were stitched together using silver which gives a really nice finish.

Remember to add the cord at the 12 O'clock position so it hangs the right way up!

I hope you enjoy this pattern, please do share a link to yours if you make it!

Ornament of the Month - October

Somehow or another it's already Autumn, Halloween is only weeks away and that means it's October, time for the next ornament! There are only 2 more months left after this pattern and then they will all be done - hopefully in time for Christmas. October has 2 birthstones Opal and Pink Tourmaline so this month has 2 patterns.