Broken heart - free cross stitch pattern - and knitting

My dear readers,

I owe you a sincere apology for abandoning you for so long. I didn't even post anything for Christmas or new year. I know… So sorry.

Remember, I am doing a university course in textiles, and it was extremely busy during the last few months. It is not much better now, but I simply had to find some time to write on my blog.

So, to start with, I am posting a cross stitch freebie for Valentines day. Love can mend a broken heart. Well, I made it as a statement and not a question, that must mean I am a very positive person, right? Optimistic and all that… :D

I made it all in red, but I am sure it would look lovely in pink, even in different shades, or in a red-pink kind of variegated thread. Please, enjoy.

Remember, a click on the picture takes you to the pdf file. If you cannot download it (e.g. you have no google account), write me an e-mail at palkoagi @ gmail . com and I can send it to you.


And I thought I would share with you my knitting experiments I did for the university course.
We had a task to choose a topic, anything we wanted, and take a "close look" at it, as I understood, as if we were looking at something through a magnifying glass. Make sketches and do experiments based on them.
I chose some Hungarian embroidery motifs from a cushion that my mum made. Isn't it just beautiful?

Here are some of the sketches I made - and this is a great development for me. I have always thought I was rubbish at drawing, I never did good sketches and was kind o f embarrassed about it. But they showed us different methods and it was so good to realise that it is not only drawing, there are many other methods.

And based on this, I made my experiments. First, I played with colour and love the results:

Then tried some structural experiments, but those did not turn out good. I would like to continue trying out different methods, not sure I will have the time though. Here I tried playing with knit and purl stitches, and also making the pattern more prominent by using short rows, like in bubble-knitting. Not working. I also made my first ever lace pattern (not the first I knitted but the first I designed myself). I don't think it is good, but perhaps not too bad either. Worth more experimenting.

And I learnt how to do double knitting.

I learnt this from the net, looking at several tutorials, mostly videos. This was the one that I liked the best, in case you want to try.
I am sure I will do more double knitting in the future, it is so much fun and looks so good. Imagine lovely colourwork without having to carry all that thread in the back!

I also though I would share with you the patterns I created for these knitting experiments. I used my cross stitch pattern making program. I did not knit all of these, I was mostly playing with the patterns. Feel free to try them out for knitting. Or perhaps they might look great in cross stitch, too.

Just one thing though: if you knit them, they will look a bit flattened, because we don't have real squares in knitting. See the pattern for the circle I knitted for my colour experiment? It is not a circle, I made it look like an oval in the pattern - so that it turned out circular in the knitting. Actually, my program does this for me, cool, isn't it?

I have more to show, but that will have to be another time. Hopefully soon. :)

Until then enjoy the freebie and try experimenting with knitting - or any other crafts you do. It is really uplifting.

Happy stitching.

Agi