Butterflies - free cross stitch pattern

I went for a long walk yesterday. I have to keep moving because I really need to lose weight, and I am having problems with eating. I was also collecting plants and flowers to try in my eco-dyeing experiments. Unfortunately, in Sweden, summer is coming to a close. It is so sad in August. There are hardly any flowers left, and those are almost all white or yellow, except the thistles that are bright pink and purple. So not much colour is left in nature. It is still mostly green but some of the plants started to turn brown. It's the ferns that are the first and as there is a lot of them around here, there will be this ugly not so nice brown colour dominating the sight for a long time from now. A few trees started also turning their leaves, now, that will be pretty when all of them are golden or reddish brown.
And on top of it all, work starts on Monday. School opens on the 15th but we start a week earlier. I have to admit, I am not looking forward to it. I have rested a lot during this summer but my back was hurting almost all the time, and this week it has become even worse.

Anyway, as I was walking yesterday, I was thinking how good that the butterflies are still around, they provided such a lovely colour variation. So this was the inspiration for today's cross stitch pattern. I hope you will like them. I made them in shades of purple, but of course, as usual, I encourage you to try other colours too.

The eco-dyeing process is going on, I need to take some photos and organize my notes, then I will be back with another report.


I have also worked some on my next "spirit cloth" piece. Unfortunately, I wasn't very good at taking pictures as I was working on it. Here is a detail-photo, but I don't have a bigger one. Not sure where I am going with it next. Watch this place for more on it.

And the cross stitch pattern. Click on the picture and it will take you to the pdf file.

Happy stitching.

Earth Day - a (belated) cross stitch pattern

I really wanted to do a pattern for Earth Day, but had no time, and did not really have an idea either. But then, as I was working on my university projects, I suddenly came up with something. So I thought it is better to post it late than never. After all, we don't need a certain date to be able to stitch for the Earth. Or if you do ;) - you can stitch it for next year.


I hope you will like it and many of my stitchy friends will actually stitch it.

Stitch an inspirational quote from Hungarian poetry

There were a few days recently that reminded me how much I love literature. Not that I need much reminding, I read (or listen to) books all the time, but I have to admit, it is easy to forget about poetry. I love poems but don't reach for my poetry collections very often. It is just as well that I used to know lots of poems by heart and still remember my favourite lines.

The 11th of April is Day of Poetry in Hungary, the birthday of Attila József. Do you want to read some of his poems in English? Here.

The 23rd of April is World Book Day - according to Wikipedia, it was first put on this day because Miguel de Cervantes Spanish writer died on this day. But this is also the birthday and the day of death of William Shakespeare.

This time I chose a quotation by Sándor Weöres. He was a fantastic poet, and as rumour has it he was shortlisted for the literature Nobel prize more than once. Even though it is very difficult to translate his poetry - perhaps because he was a master of the language. This quotation was chosen to travel to the Moon with the space probe "Puli" last year.

Unfortunately I don't know who translated it, I found different translations on the net and this one was the best, I think. The whole sentence goes like this:
"There is one knowledge alone, all the rest is mere accretion: bellow is the earth, above is the sky and inside you the ladder." (I thought it might look better with a dash in the last line.)

Find some of his works in English here.


And here is the pattern:

Happy stitching!

Blackwork biscornu pattern

Hello, stitchy friends,

Finally spring has arrived to this part of Sweden. It has been a long wait.

I am enjoying the Easter holidays. Working on my university assignments, challenging myself with embroidery techniques, using as my starting point or inspiration some photos I took of trees.

I was playing with making pattern from photos of tree trunks, learning smocking, breaking the rules, e.g. pulling the fabric together with my stitches on purpose, using a black on white printed fabric as a "colouring sheet" etc. I also bought the book Wool stitch by Yumiko Higuchi and stitching some of the patterns from it. To be honest, I am not sure where I am going with all this, I am just trying out things and playing with needle and thread. We will see.

And I also have something to share with you.

I have made a tiny blackwork pattern the other day. It started as a doodle, turned out to be something like a lily but not really on purpose. :D It is really small and dense, and I also added French knots.

I stitched it quickly, this is how it looks:

Today I drew it in my cross stitch program and started playing with it. You know, rotating, adding other small motifs etc. I really love this part when out of something small one can create a much bigger pattern. Anyway, at the end it became a biscornu, the way I usually make them: with one side more dominant than the other.

Click on the picture to get the pdf pattern.*

I did not draw the french knots, but if you want to add them, here is a drawing that shows where I stitched them. But feel free to add them wherever you want, or you can also try beads.

I used some leftover yellow thread for the stitching so I don't know what shade it is. But I drew it in red because it is easier to see. Use your favourite colour, or try a variegated thread.

I hope someone will like it and enjoy stitching it.


*I have to apologise for the pdf. The new version of MacStitch puts all the threads on a list, even those not in use. Make sure you only print out the pages you need - until I figure out how to solve this.

New freebies - finally

I am so sorry I haven't been here for so long. It's been a very busy time with university, work and some illness. It doesn't seem to be any better until the end of this term, but I will try to update the blog more often.

I know I promised a knitting pattern. I have started to make one more pullover, thinking to take notes as I go, but had to stop because I had so much else to do. I will come back to it soon, hopefully. I cannot knit much, only 15-20 minutes at a time usually, because I have a pain in my left shoulder.

Anyway, I would like to show you guys a few pictures of what I did for the university. We worked with embroidery. I have done lots of embroidery, so I wanted to try something new. I learnt needle lace, goldwork techniques and tried embroidery on materials I had never used before: tulle, organza and other very thin, see-through material.

I also learnt the basics of lace-making at university. It was so cool! I wish I had time to do more.

I also created a cross stitch freebie. There are two versions, one for a card and one for a bookmark. I hope this can bring some spring-feeling to you. Enjoy!

Happy Easter everyone! And happy spring!

Pressed flower - free cross stitch pattern

It is the summer holidays, so what can a girl do but… doing the big cleaning. I was sorting out my books and old notebooks and found some pressed flowers. Or rather some petals. I am sure the flowers were important to me when I pressed them, but I can't remember them. Probably got them from someone precious. I am ashamed that I forgot.

I tried to make a pattern out of them. First I just drew one petal, tried to capture the shading and the gradual change of colours. It is not easy if you are not willing to go huge. Then I put the petals together and made them into a flower. I really wish my program could turn pattern elements in different angles, not only 90°. But as it is, it had to become a four-petal flower.

For once I did not believe the colours my screen showed me (I have made that mistake more often than I care to admit), instead I looked at my threads and put them together in a row. I don´t have the full DMC set, so I had one missing. I hope I managed to find the right colour for that using the DMC colour chart.

I think the pattern is just the right size for a card. My fingers are itching… :)

Let me know what you think.

Click on the picture bellow to get the pdf file.

Happy summer, happy stitching.

More about biscornu - my own ideas

As promised, here come some more ideas and experiments with the biscornu and its variations, as well as some other types of pincushions.


1. Cross stitch (or any embroidery) on one side, backing fabric on the other.

The big biscornu I showed you last time, was made from a cross stitched square and a piece of fabric on the backside (unfortunately it does not show in the picture, and since it was a gift to someone, I cannot take more photos). I did not do the backstitched border and the whipstitching on this, I simply sewed the two squares right sides together, one corner matched to the centre of the other square. I sewed by hand, as I did not have a sewing machine back then.

I was wondering if it was possible to do it "properly", I mean with backstitch and whipstitch, even when you have another type of fabric on one side. The key would be to make backstitches on the other fabric the same size as on the Aida, then it should work. Need to try one day. Has anyone done this?



2. Biscornu made of felt, with blanket stitch.

I often do embroidery on a piece of felt when I sit in the classroom with my year 5 classes. When they have started their sewing and they don´t need my help so often, I sit down at the table with them and doodle with a piece of felt and some leftover thread pieces. They like to see that I sew for my own pleasure and often get inspired by what I do. This little embroidered piece was the product of such lessons. I then put it together with another square the same size and sewed them together with blanket stitch. It turned out OK, although it was much more difficult to match the corners than with Aida. It is not easy to be exact with the blanket stitch, and the felt stretched out a little as I was sewing. Some corners are not perfect, but all in all, I like the result.

I think it probably works with any other fabric plus blanket stitch - felt is just easier because it does not fray.

3. Biscornu with no sharp corners

Another variation that I came up with is what I call "the wavy biscornu". I designed the pattern so that I cut off the corners of the squares, and the biscurnu becomes softer in appearance, the corners are not so pronounced. I really like the effect.

Here and here you can see how the pattern looks like for such a biscornu. I marked with arrows on the pattern how the squares should be put together.

4. A cube pincushion

Here is another shape I came up with: it looks like a cross shaped pattern when embroidered, but then it comes together to a little cube. For a long time this was my most popular pattern on the blog. :)





5. Then, of course, there is the more traditional pillow-shaped pincushion, that can also be done with a button in the middle:








6. A variation on this is the so called mattress pin cushion, when you sew a narrow rectangle on all the four sides between the two squares. This is what I did with my latest pattern:

If you need detailed instructions for this type of pincushion, you can find one on this blog.

If you find a biscornu (or any square) pattern that you like, it is easy to turn it into a mattress pincushion. Design the small rectangles yourself: they should be the same width as the squares, and only 10-12 stitches high. Then find a small element in the original pattern that you can put in these rectangles.



7. Bi-biscornu

I have also come up with another shape that I called the "bi-biscornu". It is a cross between a biscornu and a mattress pincushion.

I have promised to write how it is made but never did, so perhaps it is time to do it.

Here is the pattern. It was made before I got my cross stitch program, it is not a pdf file, just a picture. Right click to download.

As you see, the pattern has exactly the same pieces as for the mattress pincushion. To sew together, match a corner of a small rectangle to the middle of a square. Start whipstitching together. Then add the next rectangle and the next. Then sew the other square the same way: the middle of the square meets the corners of the rectangles. I hope it makes sense.



8. And finally, some unusual shapes I have experimented with, that also use the backstitched line + whipstitching method.









These are patterns for sale, you can find them here.

I hope you can find inspiration for pincushions and biscornus in these posts. Please, send a picture if you make one of these, I would be happy to post them on the blog.

Happy stitching!