Some new freebies

Here are some new little ones for you to try out. Happy stitching.

This should be whipstitched together along the backstitch lines and form a small pyramid. You can fill it with lavender or other scent.



Just a simple geometric pattern for a card.


And a variation of the previous one - for the brave ones amongst us - I mean for those who don't hate backstitch and french knots. I actually like them. :)

Happy Easter, Happy Spring

Sorry that I am a bit late, I haave been busy with some things :)

Happy Easter to all those who celebrate, and a happy spring to everyone, anyway. It is so beautiful here at the moment.

Red and black patterns

Some new fooling around. Feel free to use the patterns or just motifs of them. Enjoy!

A sampler:



A biscornu:



A bookmark:

Stitched poetry

I have stitched a few of my favourite poems or quotations, made a separate page for them, please, take a look.
I included English translations, too :) Enjoy.

Teacher bookmarks - könyvjelzők pedagógusnapra

Teacher appreciation day is getting close, but I think there is still time to make a simple bookmark. You can even make it with the kids, you can pick just one of the motifs and the border, that would work, too. I recommend changing the pink border to blue or green for a male teacher though :)

A pedagógusnapig (Magyarországon június első vasárnapja) még van idő kihímezni egy kis könyvjelzőt, akár a gyerekekkel együtt. De talán ballagáskor is jólesik a kollégáknak egy kis kedvesség. Nyugodtan válogassatok a motívumok között, nálunk az alma nem olyan jellegzetes szimbóluma a szakmának, mint Amerikában.

blackwork biscornu stitched and another geometric pattern

I stitched the blackwork biscornu yesterday. Is it only me, when I have plans what to do and what to stitch then there is suddently something I really must do first, and the plans are put off all the time?
I just read a lovely quote yesterday: "Don't procrastinate, put it off right now". LOL

So here it is, I didn't realise how tiny it would be. I made it on a srcap piece of material which was very small count, so that might be one reason. Used some Caron threads and a Glissengloss rainbow.





And here are the edges, even less sharp than the previous one, I am not even sure if it IS a biscornu any more. ???
You can see how tiny it has become.




The next is: I made two cards from New Stitches not long ago, with lovely, simple and colourful designs, and since I have one more of the same type of card, I needed a third pattern. (There might be more in the magazine but I didn't feel like searching for it LOL) So this was born, and it is being stitched right now.

A blackwork biscornu

This biscornu, just like the one I posted previously, will not have sarp corners but nice wavy sides.

I marked with arrows where the pieces should meet in the middle, green arrow with the green and red with the red. I hope it is clear.

As for the stitching, I drew it in one colour but I am thinking of stitching it either in some multicolour thread or stitch some parts with metallic.

New finishes

I have been on a finishing spree these past days. I promised myself I am not trying out my new sewing machine until I finish some things. First, because I need space on the table (LOL) and second, because I am a coward... LOL again.

I finished the Hungarian patterns I showed you not long ago, here they are:



I especially like these two little cushions. I saw pictures of similar things on the net, but no tutorial, so I figured out how to do it by trial and error :)






And another experimental thing. Again, a pattern I posted earlier, and said I wasn't sure whether it would work for a biscornu, because I didn't draw it as a rectangular shape but had the corners cut off.





(I have to admit, I was so much in a hurry to see how it would look finished that I forgot to stitch the yellow in the middle of the flowers on the other side :D )

So, I think it did work, and I have to say I really like the wavy effect the edges have. Compare it with the sharp corners of a regular biscornu.

Vicces "Isten hozott" - Subversive Welcome sampler

Már készülök egy ideje, hogy hímezek egy "Isten hozott" feliratot az előszobába, terveztem is egy mintát hozzá (l. korábbi bejegyzések), de jobban szerettem volna valami kicsit viccesebbet. Ez lett az eredménye.
(Amúgy tud valaki valami jó szót a Subversive cross stitch kifejezésre? Nekem a "pofátlan" ugrott be elsőnek...)


I was planning to stitch a Welcome sampler for my hall, I have made a design earlier (see older posts) but I wanted someething a bit funnier. So I came up with this. I have to thank my friends on crossstitchforum.com for helping me phrase the English version.








Well, I had second thoughts. It appeared to me that perhaps Welcome would look better in one word, so I made some rearragement of the pattern. Would like to know which one you all prefer.




Egy megjegyzés. A minták készítéséhez PCStitchPro programot használok, de amikor jpg fájlként mentem el őket, a 10x10-es vonalak nem látszanak, hiába próbáltam vastagítani őket, semmi nem segít. Egy ideig a kisebb mintákon megrajzoltam a vonalakat, de a nagyobbaknál elég macerás. Ha kinyomtatjátok, akkor meg lehet húzni őket vonalzóval, szerencsére a számok látszanak, de ha ez gond, akkor szóljatok, és megcsinálom. Ha valakinek megvan ez a program, és szeretné inkább a PAT fájlt, szóljon, és elküldöm e-mailben, akkor akár módosíthatjátok is a mintát.

Just a side note. I am using PCStitchPro for creating my patterns but for some reason when I export them into a jpg file, the bold 10x10 lines don't show up. I tried making them even bolder but nothing seems to help. So I gave up. With smaller patterns I just drew the lines in backstitch but with the bigger ones it's kind of a bother. If you print out the patterns, you can draw your own lines, luckily, the numbers are given. Or if you think it is too much to ask, let me know and I will draw them in blackwork. Also, if you have PCStitch, send me an e-mail and I can send you the PAT file, that way you can even make some adjustments if you like.

One more Easter pattern

I seem to be in the whimsical mood lately LOL.

I designed another Easter pattern and named it "Whimsical Easter hanging". I think you can see why :)

Some more Hungarian patterns

I love the coasters, but am still thinking of how to finish the rest.

The bookmark on the gray aida is not Hungarian, it is and old Viking pattern. :) :)

Crochet, makrame and woven bracelets

I have started to learn to crochet many times, but last time I was really determined and now I can say I know the basic stitches, and have made about 25 squares for a future afghan as practice pieces. But I am still quite inexperienced, find it difficult to crochet evenly, struggling with patterns etc.

So I discovered "whimsical crochet" when you can say it looks like that on purpose LOL.

My first such piece, crocheted without any pattern, just as it came, was a bracelet for my daughter and she loved it. She encouraged me to make some more, so here are the experiments. Sorry about the ironing board and the pins, they are being blocked right now.





and the craziest ones:




I also made two makrame bracelets:


and one woven:



I am not giving up and hope to make some more and better ones, so watch this place! :)

Free cross stitch patterns - with a twist

This is not your typical cross stitch topic :D I made it a while ago when two of my students won the national competition in electronics. It is supposed to be a circuit board. I made it into cards for them.





This other one was also a Well done card for success in an English competition. I hid the words in a word search game. I don't have the pattern for it but you can adapt the idea. :)



This one is a combination of cross stitch and makrame. It was just an experiment, but I really like it so might try some more. I think it is going to make a nice card, too.

Knitted and felted bag

This is my first attempt, but definitely not the last. I bought some really cheap wool at a thrift shop, and it felted, well, not 100 % perfect, but I quite like the effect. You can still see the knitted stitches, but barely.

Woven bookmark

I do have a loom but have no energy for warping. So I just took out a drawer and made a mini-loom.

This is what I made. The edges are not really even and the width is not exactly the same at the two ends, but then I haven't woven anything for about 15 years... Feels as if learning anew. :)



And another one in progress:

Two cross stitch bookmark patterns

The colours are as follows (DMC):



For the lilac one: 155, 3733, 208, 051
For the orange one: 900, 947, 970, 743










EDIT:

Since this seems to be the most popular post on my blog ever, I thought to give all that visit here a bit of encouragement: go and see the newest patterns by clicking on Home at the bottom of the page. Right now (31st August 2014) there is a giveaway you can sing up for! Welcome!

Spring sampler

I made a spring sampler, in two colourways. But of course, you are welcome to change the colours to your liking.

easter chicken

I designed this for an Easter exchange. You can choose to stitch the whole pattern, or, as I did, cut out the chicken from yellow Aida and stitch the pattern on it. Then I buttonhole-stitched it to a piece of fabric to make a small ornament. Actually, finishing it this way was not easy, so perhaps stitching the yellow would be worth it after all. :)



Here is what I made of it - some colours are different, but I always do that, change colours as I go. :)

Hope someone out there will like it. :)

Smile

I felt I really needed some cheering up. This is the result. :)

Another free cross stitch pattern. A sampler with one of my favourite sayings.




Actually, the middle motif is quite good without the backstitch elements, too if you want to leave them out.

Some more of my cross stitches based on Hungarian patterns

I apparently made a mistake. I wanted to post this on the Hungarian folk art page but didn't manage and now don't know how I could put it there. Well, I will just have to put up with my inadequate blogging skills. :(


Some christmas ornaments stitched with folk art patterns but christmasy colours (not the one on the left but the other two).





This was just a play with a typical pattern in black and white. This is a common element in Hungarian patterns but I think it must be a really wide-spread motif since you can find it in so many other countries' folk tradition.



Some small gift bags I made when I went to Scotland. There was some chocolate and paprika in them. :)




A cushion pattern from Cigánd (I think I found this in the Keresztszemes magazin).



some close-ups:






This is a bookmark with a pattern from the area of Kis-Küküllő.




Some bookmarks with birds:





(this photo was taken before finishing the bookmark)

One more from Tard:



And one more with a peacock pattern and the first line of a Hungarian folk song:


I also started the so called Rákóczi-pattern, but I stitched it on gyöngyvászon (a type of evenweave) with perle and I didn't like it at all, the thread was too thick for the material, so I stopped. Have been planning to restart it ever since...