Matyóbaba. Doll in Hungarian folk costume.

Legújabb megvásárolható mintám. Matyóbaba. Remélem, tetszik. Én nagyon élveztem hímezni.

This is my newest pattern for sale. The costume is that of a group called "matyó" in North-Eastern Hungary, near my birthplace. I hope you like it. I really enjoyed stitching it.

I am planning to do a series of these dolls. The next, of course, is going to be a Swedish one.

Mérete / Size: 49 x 71 stitches.

Ára: 1000 Ft
Price: 5 Euros

"A free bookmark a day" week is coming

To celebrate MAY :D - and hopefully, some spring weather, finally - I am doing "A free bookmark a day" week from 1st May, that is starting next Tuesday.

Some of the bookmarks have already been designed, but I still need to make a few and I do have ideas for them, but I thought perhaps you could also tell me what kind of designs you would like to see.

So, come on, guys, here is the opportunity, tell me what you need and I will try to make them. If there are too many ideas, perhaps not next week, but sooner or later ;)

Looking forward to some brainstorming with you all. :D

Cross stitch bracelet free pattern

Hello, everyone :)

I made a pattern for a bracelet. Gives me some spring-feeling, not that we have any spring here in Sweden yet. Yesterday it was actually snowing! :(

I would recommend stitching it on 16 count Aida or 32 count evenweave, it would be about 2 cms wide. You can adjust the length by repeating the pattern or leaving out some motifs.

Feel free to choose your favourite colours. If you have some lovely coloured fabric, you can leave out the background stitching, although I think in this case it would look nicer stitched.

I made two versions, depending how you want to finish it, you can either leave the ends straight and add some clasp or go for the pointed ends and just add a little cord to tie it together. I would sew felt on the back or add iron-on interfacing, or perhaps sew the same length of backstitch on another piece of Aida and whipstitch them together. But perhaps the folded edges of two pieces would look a bit bulky? What do you think?

Of course, it would serve just as well as a bookmark.

I hope I will have time to stitch it myself soon. Actually, I am thinking of trying out some subtle coloured variegated thread for the background, but I need to experiment with colours first. Do the same and show us what you have come up with!

Happy stitching :)

Update 4th May: I have stitched it and added some felt as backing. The clasps are still missing: can't find them. So typical. :(

I used DMC 309 for the red, 3822 for the yellow, and variegated 4240 for the background.

Tutorial: a hawk in my window - English paper piecing

A few days ago a starling died after colliding with my window. I have windows both on the east and west side of my living room, so it probaby saw the light and thought it could fly through.
I decided to hang one of those hawk silhouettes in the window. But I didn't like the idea of having something ugly black... so I came up with this idea. I took pictures of the process, so here is a tutorial how to make one.

First I printed out a silhouette from this site - but I was in a hurry at my boyfriend's place so didn't get the right size. Of course, the best is to print it enlarged to an A4 sheet or enlarge it with a photocopier, but as I had none at home, I had to use the old-fashioned method: divide the picture into squares, draw the same number of - bigger - squares on the cardboard, and try to copy the shapes for each square.

I cut a side from a muesli-box and draw the picture on it, then cut it out. Later realized that simple printing paper would have been better. This is only my second attemt at paper piecing and I forgot about the basting. :(







Then I cut it up into five, trying to cut straight lines. After that took out my scrap fabrics and found a few pieces that were big enough to cover each segment.






For sewing the pieces together I used the English paper piecing. I learned it from
this video - although this time I didn't do the basting, just pinned it. I regretted it as I was sewing :D
Then I sewed blanket stitch around the shape folding under about 1 cm.



This is what resulted:




However, when I lifted it to the window, the folds and hems were very visible. So first I ironed on some thick white batting, then the thin black iron-on interfacing that I had at home. I am sure sewing the whole shape to a piece of black fabric, e.g. felt, would be just as good.



This is it hanging in the window - I cannot really make the colours and patterns be seen in the photo against the light, but it is really lovely.



And for the birds it is just a black shape. I only hope they will see it through the window and will not be fooled by the reflection. Fingers crossed!

A tea freebie and another pattern for sale

I have drawn a tea-themed freebie this time. I hope you like it. Enjoy! :)




My new pattern for sale is a pyramid shape with some side "petals" so I decided to call it "Tulip".




It costs 5 Euros - send the money by Paypal, and I e-mail you the pattern with detailed instructions how to put it together.

And I need a little help again. For some reason two rectangles have appeared on the top of the site - I have no idea what I did wrong. Can anyone help how to get rid of them? :-o

Working with felt

I use felt in school with my students. They love working with it, they make little softies or pictures with it.
First I made a few pieces as examples to show them, but I really enjoyed it so I made a few things for my webshop. This bracelet and phone-holder.
I have already sold the phone-holder and one of the cross stitched pincushions I made long ago. :)

Crazy Quilt challenge - March block

Here is my March block for the CQJP blog challenge. This is the one I like the most so far. I don't know how others do this, but I rarely have a real plan when I start. I just put pieces of fabric together and see where it leads me.
I think I have already written how I decided to use small pieces of embroidery (mostly cross stitch) that I have made and didn't finish or just used to try out things. In this case it is the little golden piece of linen with the white embroidery in the top left corner. I added a few more stitches to the unfinished piece.



Another thing I try to do on these pieces is to use some of the old textiles I managed to buy in different second-hand shops and flea-markets. Sweden is really a treasure-chest in this sense. Not long ago I found a little silk handkerchief for 5 krowns (about 50 eurocents). It had apparently been torn in the middle and someone tried to mend it very clumsily: folded the corners in the middle and added a patch of lace to hide the hole, also sewed the same lace all around. It was this lace that caught my attention, and it is the thing that runs down diagonally on this piece. A part of the silk handkerchief is also incorporated here. There was such a strong crease in the middle that I couldn't iron it out. So I decided to sew it down - that is the white line. Then I added some simple stem-stitch motifs, with different thicknesses. I also like the rick-rack that was a leftover piece in my stash.



This little round thing here is crocheted. I was trying out a tutorial for crocheted beads but I didn't like the look of it stuffed. I flattened it and it looked almost like a button. It was lying on my table for weeks, I didn't know what to do with it. Then the inspiration struck: I will embroider it. I used some white and some gold metallic thread.




Here you can see a piece of a golden ribbon I added as a border between two fabrics and a little spider-web flower.



I also love this green fabric, it is from some old clothes. I didn't iron it before adding it to the basic, I liked the wrinkled effect. I wanted to couch the ribbons but this was so slippery (and the golden one was too wide) that I decided to sew one stitch in the ribbon between the couching stitches. Then I added some bullion stitches.



All in all, I think this turned out more or less as my image of a crazy quilt - some interesting fabric and some simple embroidery - but not too much. I feel less is often more in these cases.
Sorry if I sound a bit too full of myself :) I am really happy about this little thing.

Easter basket - a quick and easy cross stitch freebie

There is still time for stitching this little basket until Easter.
Enjoy :)

I have received an award!

Guess what! In the past two days two of my readers have presented me with the Liebster Blog award! I am so happy to know that people find my blog worth noting.
Thank you so much Jeanette
and Donna


To accept the award, the blogger must:
1. Link back to the person who gave it to you and thank them.
2. Post the award to your blog.
3. Give the award to 5 bloggers with less than 200 followers that you appreciate and value.
4. Leave a comment on the 5 blogs to let them know they have been offered this award.
5. Share 5 random facts about yourself that people don't know about you.



So here are the five people I would like to award:

Diane
Vera
Paige
Adri
Karin

As you see, they are from different countries and write in different languages (I, for example, don't understand much of the Swedish on Karin's site) but isn't it wonderful how craft has become a kind of international language? We can say so much with pictures :)



5 random facts about me??? Hm... not easy.

1. I love sweet pasta. Pasta with poppy seed, with semolina and jam, with walnuts etc. This is actually quite common in Hungary.

2. When I was a child, I used to write short stories and poems - as, I suppose, many of us did.

3. I wrote a book teaching foreigners Hungarian pronunciation. Well, those who have used it, know about it, but I don't think it is common knowledge in the blogosphere :)

4. I used to sing in a choir, and miss it very much, so hopefully I can find a choir here and join soon.

5. I worked one day in the Capitol in Washington DC as an interpreter.



One more thing. Help me, please. Those, who use Blogger: how do you post a working link? If I click on the link icon and write an adress there, it doesn't appear in my post but it puts a totally different code somewhere in the middle of my text.

Here is an example:


I am writing something, just as an exahttp://www.blogger.com/img/blank.gifmple. Now I will post a link here:

- this here is the link. Can you see it?

Please, help me. Thank you. :)

I think I managed to post the links properly now. Thanks for the help :)

A new pattern for sale

Here is my newest pattern for sale. A love sampler, we could say - but not the usual type. Still, I think this says more about love than all the hearts and sweet words.

Size: 150 x 80 stitches
Price: 5 euros. Pay with Paypal and I am sending you the pattern in e-mail.