Free blackwork bookmark and square

I seem to be on the blackwork trail nowadays :)

Here is a bookmark and a square I designed, and there are some more coming.






Happy stitching.

A WIP finished

I have finally finished my stitches sampler. It is going to be a cushion cover. I am planning to write a detailed description of each square, if I can remember all the stitches I made :) Watch this place.

Végre befejeztem a különböző öltésekből álló munkámat, amiből hamarosan párnahuzat lesz. Azt tervezem, hogy részletesen leírom mindegyik négyzetről, milyen öltést használtam, feltéve, hogy emlékszem mindegyikre. :) Nézzetek vissza hamarosan.

Summertime free pattern and bookmark pattern

I have been listening to Ella Fizgerald. And also, it has been around 30 degrees here recently, so I really got into a summer mood. :)

Ella Fitzgeraldot hallgattam. Na és mostanában 30 fok körül jár a hőmérséklet errefelé, nem csoda, hogy nyári hangulatba kerültem. :)

First I made a pattern to celebrate summer, with all the colours and flowers but then realised that most of us probably doesn't necessarily want to stitch something this big, so I made a smaller, bookmark version as well - not a small bookmark, though ;)

Először készítettem egy mintát, amivel igazán meg lehet ünnepelni a nyarat, sok-sok színnel, virágokkal, meg ami csak belefér, de aztán ráébredtem, hogy sokunknak valószínűleg épp ez nem biztos, hogy bele fog férni, így hát született egy kisebb, könyvjelző méretű verzió is. Bár könyvjelzőnek azért nem olyan kicsi ;)

Hope you like it.
Remélem, tetszeni fog.

A blue butterfly

I took this photo about two weeks ago, in Fót, Hungary, where there is a hill full of lots of different butterflies. There is a study trail worth visiting, it is amazing.
Ezt a képet a fóti Somlyóhegyen készítettem úgy két hete, a pillangó tanösvényen. Érdemes megnézni, csodálatos!





I tried to make a cross stitch pattern from the photo. Not converting a photo, just drawing myself. I will try the conversion, too, but that will have to be a much bigger pattern, I think. This is just a small one. I hope someone out there likes it. If you look at the photo, I think you will find it justified if I say: stitch the middle with metallic thread!

Megpróbáltam mintát alkotni a képből. Nem konvertáltam a programmal, csak úgy megrajzoltam. Meg fogok próbálkozni azzal is, de az jóval nagyobb minta lesz. Most csak ilyen kicsit akartam. Remélem, tetszik. Ha összehasonlítjátok a fényképpel, szerintem igazat adtok nekem, ha azt mondom: a közepét fémszálas fonállal kellene hímezni.

New blackwork biscornu, free pattern, and a WIP

I made this little one yesterday and today:






It's on 16 cound Aida, stitched with white and pink satin thread. The button is actually pink, but the photo doesn't show it very well. On the other side I put a few small beads.

Here is the pattern. Remember, as this is not not a "pointed corner" biscornu, when you sew it together, match the green arrows with the green ones and the read arrows with the red ones. (They are not to be stitched.) Please, enjoy. :)




And now one of my WIPs. I am not a "big project" person, so even when I do something big, I choose it to be made of smaller parts. Right now I am working on an afghan. Instead of the original pink roses pattern I decided to stitch Celtic patterns on it. I have done two motifs so far:

the Celtic hound:



and the Celtic horse (this was finished a few days ago):



The whole afghan looks like this right now - actually, this is not the whole, just the middle of it, it is too big to fit in a picture :)



Next I am planning to do a Celtic knot.

Flexible macramé bracelet. Tutorial.

There are all those friendship bracelets, true, they are for the young but I would love to wear one or two as well. The problem is, the concept of the friendship bracelet is that you should not take it off. Also, it would be nice to have a few in different colours and change them according to my mood. But it doesn’t work well if they are knotted on your wrist. So I was wondering if I can make something similar but flexible. I tried to make a few with clasps, but it is difficult to guess the right size. What fits my wrist, is too big for my daughter.

So I came up with the idea of the flexible macramé bracelet. Here is a tutorial, or rather an attempt to a tutorial – it’s my first time, so please, be patient with me. Also, when I started, I wasn’t sure how I would finish it, so at the end some pictures are missing. I photographed one step, didn’t like it, tried another one – and forgot to take a photo of that. Also, as I looked through this post, I can see that I am really bad about placing the photos and the text, the pictures are not aligned etc... please, forgive me, will try and learn how to do it better for next time.:)

Ok, so here it goes. First, what I used:

Black perle thread, black flexible cord, and some embellishments: buttons, a bead and a hanging little butterfly. I used double thread to give it some thickness. Earlier I made one with single thread and it looked lovely, too but you need smaller beads for that.
I cut the flexible cord 60 cm long and the perle 170 cm, and folded them in two. hanged them on a loop – I used a small embroidery hoop’s spring, but you can use anything provided you can slide it off at the end.

Then I put the hoop on the corner of a pillow, this is very comfortable for me. Started to make some simple macramé knots, keeping the flexible cord in the middle.











When I reached a certain length (I didn’t measure, I am so bad at planning, just guessed – but you might want to draw a simple plan for yourself to place the embellishments evenly), I checked which thread would be going across in front for the next knot.

I put a button on that thread (here it was useful to have double thread) and continued knotting. This is how it looks from the front and the back.



















Again, after a certain length I added the bead. This one had three holes, a big one in the middle and two smaller ones on two sides – but I think any bead could do, you can pull all the threads through the hole, or just the middle ones, and tie a knot around the bead with the other threads.


Then some more knots, another button, and some more knots again.

Now, here comes the trouble. On my previous bracelet I tried to weave in all the thread ends, but it wasn’t a huge success, it is difficult to hide so many, there was a bulk in the bracelet. That’s why I thought now I will not hide them, but use them for an accent.
First, I took off the beginning loop using a needle so as not to lose the hole as it was quite small. Then I pulled the flexible cords in the middle through the loop and pulled them taut.


















I secured the middle threads with a pin. And then I knotted the last few knots to cover up this place where the beginning and end meet.














There I was, the bracelet done but lots of threads hanging out of it. So I tied the small butterfly on them and cut the ends, leaving a tassel-like ending. Not a perfect solution, but I kind of like it. Will have to think about finishing it in a better way.




This is how it looks like - a bit tight on my wrist but will be perfect for my daughter.

Long armed cross stitch - free bookmark

First, would you like a good laugh? I crocheted a bag with pure wool. It looked just lovely. Then I put it in the washing machine to felt. And this is what came out of the machine:



It is VERY small and really thick. Lesson: crochet felts much better than knitting. Well, I can still use it as a mini stitching basket or decorate it with some flowers and give it to a child. :D


Now, the stitching results of the past few days. I stitched the blue striped design, both with and without the red backstitch/French knots, and made an ornament out of the two.
I used DMC 311, 794 and 309 for this. Can't decide which side I prefer. :) If you want to make it, note that the version with the red is one stitch smaller, so you need to stitch the backstitch line accordingly (my favourite finishing method is this, and not only for biscornus: backstitch line all around, then whipstitch together).





I also stitched the bird in the circle, using a variegated blue, Anchor 1210. Don't know yet how I will finish it.



I made a variation of the circle with coloured sections, and stitched it with smyrna stitches:



Here is the modified pattern:



There is another new freebie: a bookmark pattern. I stitched it using long armed cross stitch. It has long intrigued me, since it was used in old Hungarian patterns, but recently I discovered it in Swedish stitching as well. The Swedish call it twistsöm. What is different from cross stitch: you stitch the lines following the direction of the pattern.
I looked at different books, and found something interesting: in the Hungarian tradition they stitch a line then turn the work and stitch the next line in the other direction. This way they are creating ridges and valleys, so to speak. Swedish twistsöm, if I understood the explanation in my book correctly, is usually stitched starting from the same end, and so the lines resemble braided thread. There are other interesting similarities and differences between the two countries' stitching traditions, but more about that later. I am still learning.
I thought the simple stripes pattern will be an easy one to try out this stitch, and here is the result.





I like my bookmarks to have a back, so I often stitch someting simple to put on the back, too.

Here you can see the long armed cross stitch/twistsöm more closely:



This photo also gives you an idea how the bookmark was finished: two lines of backstitch on the long sides, whipstitched together, and the lines across at the ends were stitched going through both layers. Then the edges were frayed. I like this finishing. This bookmark can be washed if it gets dirty, still, it is not too soft.

For those who don't know how to stitch long armed cross stitch, here is a step by step drawing, I hope it is clear enough:



And finally, the pattern of the bookmark (of course, it will look lovely with simple cross stitch, too).



I know that some of you have stitched a pattern or two from this site. Can you please, send me a picture or allow me to put up a link here? It would be so nice to see them all.
Happy stitching to everyone. :)

New free patterns - and some photos.

I was not online much in the past few weeks but I hope when you see my photos, you will forgive me. I didn't stitch much either. Only worked a bit on my stitches sampler (pictures a bit later) but have designed a few small freebies again. Please, enjoy them. This time I was playing around with a circle as the basis of the patterns and tried different "fillings".

A simple geometric one, which woud be good to play with different colour scehemes, variegated thread, or perhaps different stitches. (Hm, I might rethink this one a bit later.)




Two variations of the same pattern:





A bird:



And two with flowers:






And here are some of my photos of wild flowers that I saw in the past three weeks on trips in Hungary. Unfortunately, I don't know what they are called, apart from a few. But I will know later, and will add the names.

This I know, it is feather grass. Not an easy one to photograph, though:




Flowering ash:




A wild rose:


This might be hawthorn but I am not sure:












And a sunset: