Christmas ornament

Hello, dear Friends,


Christmas is upon us in just a few days. I am sure most of us are busy preparing for the festivities. But if you need a bit of me-time, a bit of relaxing, or perhaps a last-minute gift, here is a small Christmas pattern that you can stitch. It works well for an ornament, a card, or a decoration on something like a doily, a bag etc.

I made two versions: one with a golden garland wrapped around the greenery and one without, if someone prefers simple.

The pattern says DMC 3854 for the "gold", but I would actually stitch it in metallic gold instead.
I think this would look lovely if the French knots were replaced by beads, too.

Happy stitching and happy preparation-time. Don't overdo it though! :D

Christmas stitching 1

Perhaps you could guess from the pictures in my previous post: I was again selling some of my things at the Christmas market. I went to Vattholma julmarknad, this is near where we live, about 20 km from Uppsala, and also to Hågaby - this is in town. They went OK, not too good but better than lat year. I had to realise, again, that you cannot really make profit on needlework. At least I got back the cost of the material.

After the two big markets, I also did small ones in the staff room of my school, and at my boyfriend´s workplace. All the money from those I sent to a charity, and that felt really good.


So here are some of the things I made.

You may remember from the last two years that I love making small embroidered felt ornaments.

I made the usual read and white ones. Forgot to take a good picture of them, and now only have a few left, not the most beautiful ones. They looked like these, but there were different shapes, hearts and stars, decorated with applique, embroidery and beads.

Here is a detail from the above picture on the market, not a really good one but perhaps you can see the variety.

But my favourites were these white ornaments, embroidered with gold metallic thread. Unfortunately they were not as popular a the red-white combination. (Swedish people are quite traditional when it comes to their Christmas decorations.)

This time I also tried making some cross stitched ornaments. It was simply that I missed cross stitch, I didn´t stitch so much lately with all the university assignments. It was fun to stitch them - but did not sell many. I still have a lot of them left.

The ones with the red felt around them were not so easy to make: the felt stretched out of shape a little. Perhaps I should have starched it a bit before cutting.

I also made some felted ball ornaments. They are actually recycling: we make them at school, during the felting unit, and kids often leave them behind if they do not turn out as they expected. So I collected them, worked on them a bit more to make them fully felted, then dyed them in kool-aid. :) Then added some embroidery and beads.

And this year again I made the little walnut-babies. I love them, they have such a great feeling to them, old-fashioned, natural, cute... They speak of Christmas to me.

I wrote about how to make them here. This time I embroidered the star in the middle instead of glueing.



And finally, a few pictures about my embroideries that I made in the summer with flowers and grass. In case you have been wondering how they turned out after 5 months.
They still look quite good. The two flower-pieces haven´t changed at all, the grass has dried but still looks OK. They hang here above my sewing machine, I love looking at them.

Next time I will be coming back with describing my recycling Christmas projects. Watch this place.

Until then, happy stitching.

Agi

Christmas stitching started

(Since this seems to be one of the most popular posts on my blog recently, I thought to give all that visit here a bit of encouragement: click on Home at the bottom of the page. Right now (31st August 2014) there is a giveaway you can sing up for! Welcome!)


Hello, I am here again.

First week of school is over. God, I am sooooo tired! Even though we only had three proper teaching days, the first two days being mentor time, discussing school rules, team building etc. with my class. I feel really lucky, the kids seem to be very nice, all of them, and my co-mentor is fabulous!
In my lessons, I started felting with my year 6, we made some felted balls and next lesson we will make a piece of fabric that can be used to sew with. With year 7 classes, we started knitting/crocheting, most of them are really excited about it and that is such a good feeling. With the little ones, year 5, I only had lessons with two of the classes, we will do hand sewing with felt, and we were playing with the leftover pieces from last year - I teach them not waste fabric and try to use all pieces, even the tiny ones. The other two classes will start weaving next week - I only have enough looms for two classes, so we have a rotation and it works quite well. I have a really good feeling about this year, I feel much more prepared than ever before, and I have made changes in my program where I felt it needs to be made a bit less "work" and more fun. Wish me luck, please :)

Also, as autumn is slowly creeping in under the threshold, I started thinking about my plans for the Christmas fair. Learning from last years experience, I want to make lots of things for Christmas decoration, ornaments and such. I realised that people go to these fairs not to buy their presents (for that they prefer to use the shops), but more for the feeling, for the atmosphere. Most of what I sold last year were ornaments, so I am going to do more of those.

I had an idea about a cross stitched christmas wreath. I even made a little experiment, cut out a kind of doughnut-shape from a piece of fabric, or rather two and sewed them together to see how it looks stuffed. It looked good, so I am going for it. I want to have a piece of embroidery on the front and some christmasy fabric on the back.

There is one problem though: the circles can be sewn together with the sewing machine on the outward line, but not on the inner one, otherwise it cannot be turned inside out. So the inner circle will have to be sewn by hand. I hope it will work out all right still. I will perhaps attach some cord around it to hide the sewing line if it is not nice enough :D

Anyway, I made my cross stitch pattern for one, I am going to start it right away to see how fast I can make one. Then I am planning to design some more in different sizes.

I am sharing the pattern with you all out there, I hope you like it. I will also be back with instructions on ho to sew the wreath when I am done. So watch this place! Also, if you don't want a wreath, you can use it for a cushion.
Have you started your Christmas stitching yet? Have you got some good ideas for me for the market? Please share.



As usual, clicking on the pictures will take you to the downloadable pdf file from my google account. If you have any problems with that, let me know.
The two patterns are identical, except the border that is red in one and green in the other.
I drew some elements in a yellow colour, and I think that could look all right, but actually I am planning to stitch that in golden metallic. Only I didn't have that in my colour palette. So my intentions are:

DMC 444 Lemon dk = golden metallic


Happy stitching from

Agi :)


Edit:
Oops, I have just finished stitching this and noticed a mistake in the pattern. Now I have corrected it and uploaded the good version, if you want to download it again. Or just make sure you check the golden backstitch lines and make them symmetrical in the bottom middle part.

Here is my stitched version. The gold metallic does enhance it a lot, don't you think so?

Edit #2

I have finished it in a wreath. I will post a tutorial on how to do this. I am not 100% happy with it, it was impossible to stuff it nice and smooth. But it is quite near to what I imagined at the beginning.

"Bibiscornu" - a new type of biscornu

I have come up with another new type of biscornu and since it actually doubles the corners in a way, I called it a "bibiscornu" - but if anyone can come up with a better name, suggestions are welcome.

I am publishing quite a lot of free patterns here, but I thought that those that involve coming up with a new structure, not simply another cross-stitch chart, would be my "capital" - and I am trying to sell those. There hasn't been a huge rush to buy my patterns, so far I have sold 3 of them in more than half a year. I am not expecting much, to be honest, I know that most of us are out there on the hunt for more freebies. Why buy something when you can find similar patterns for free?

Still, I hope that some people who enjoy all the freebies, when they can afford, will also buy something, especially if that means something new, like the twisty biscornus you can find on the Patterns for sale page. Or the newest variation on the traditional one, the bibiscornu:

I still have to write the instructions, it will be available in a few days.

Geometric quilt cross stitch pattern

I have made another quilt-style cross stitch pattern.

The smaller squares, I think, are perfect for a biscornu or ornament and the bigger is just the right size to stitch for a needlebook, if you fold it in the middle.

You can also stitch it vertically, for a book cover. This is what I plan to do with it when I have time.


The colours are:

326 rose vy dp
3778 terra cotta lt

and the white squares are left empty, assissi-style, but of course, you can stitch them or substitute your favourite colours.

I hope someone out there will find pleasure in stitching these. :)

Free biscornu pattern

This biscornu pattern has been inspired by Hungarial folk art.
It doesn't have a sharp corner, so it is going to have softer lines than the usual biscornu. There is a photo of another one I made in this post.

To whipstitch it together, just match the middle stitch of the cut-off corner with the middle stitch of one side of the other square and go around as usual.

I think it would also look lovely sewn together as a simple square.

Hope you like it. :)

Mothers' day (or thank you) patterns

If I am not mistaken, Mothers' day is next Sunday in the USA and lots of other countries, and it is the last Sunday of May in Sweden.
So, in between the bookmarks, I have drawn two small patterns for Mothers' day, that you can stitch in a week and use for a card, gift bag or pincushion etc.

If you have already celebrated Mothers' day, you can still use them as Thank you-cards, I made two versions.
I hope someone will like them and stitch them. Enjoy.

Merry Christmas, happy holiday season

Wishing all my readers who celebrate, a very merry Christmas. And even if you don't, I wish peace and joy to everyone.

Accept these speciality-stitches mini-ornaments as my gift to you. They can be done in half an hour or so if you can find a little stitchy time during the holidays.



In the middle you can find smyrna stitch, then heringbone leaf stitch (find a diagram here: http://www.catiacrafts.com/tips.html - scroll down a bit) and different size star stitches, don't know their names but I hope they are obvious from the pattern.





Do the blackwork border first. The stitches used are: standing crosses, heringbone, running stitch, star stitch, the "candles" are made with lazy daisy stitches, then chain stitch and half cross stitch.

Christmas tree alphabet - free cross stitch pattern

I made some christmas tree patterns two years ago, and I just realised they have never been published here. Originally I only made a few of these, with initials of some friends, and now I completed the pattern to make a whole alphabet.


Here are photos (not too good ones, sorry) of two of them stitched. As you can see, I used a variegated thread to stitch, and added some beads to the seam on the first, and made a mini-bag out of an Aida-band on the second.





I hope you will like the pattern.




















And finally, here it is without a letter if you want it that way, and the matching piece that I used for the back. Of course, you can use some patterned fabric for backing, or you can simply glue the stitching on a card.

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. :)