Easter bunny free cross stitch pattern

Easter is coming! Spring is here! I am so excited. Went for a walk today and saw the first blåsippa - that is anemone hepatica, or liverwort, kidneywort or pennywort in English (according to Wikipedia). Here are a few pictures from my walk. The pink flowering bush is something we try to find every year, but I forgot the name, I will ask Stephen when he wakes up :D

I thought this is something to celebrate, so that's why I made this pattern for you. It is simple and easy, and there is still time to stitch it for Easter. It is small, so you can use it for a card or put it on a cushion or on a door hanging. Lots of colours, bunny and flowers - I hope it will lift everyone's spirits. It certainly made me happy. :D

Click on the picture to get to the pdf file.

I was busy lately, but somehow didn't manage to write on the blog. Let me make up for it. Here are a few things I have been working on.



Serendipty II is finished:

I got a new mobile so I made a new cross stitched mobile phone case.

I did lots of English paper piecing, love these hexagons. They are also perfect for using even the smallest scraps.

I think this photo I made of the hexagon paper templates turned out to be really cool. :)

I continued working on the quilt I am making for my daughter, made of 7,5 cm (=3 inch) half square triangles, I was totally crazy when I decided on this. :D But it is going to be lovely.

I also made a quilt top from some cool panels.

I am hopin to be able to finish quilting these myself. I started learning free motion quilting.

I made some softies, like this kitty...

...and this bunny.

And this is a summer bag, for going to the beach.

I also did some knitting:

a scarf,...

double knitted hat and mittens, with my own pattern...

as well as these hats. I am going to publish the pattern for these soon.

I also learnt how to knit from top down. For this little sweater I followed a pattern. Unfortunately it became smaller than expected, but I will find someone who can use it, and I am planning to knit another, slightly bigger one now.

Whoa, I got tired just from showing you all this - and this is the result of the last three months. Not too bad, is it?
I also have some more things that I started but they are far from being finished, so I will show you later.

HAPPY SPRING! :D

Running bunnies

I have got into the Easter spirit. I have been crocheting bunnies, eggs and a baby chick, although they are not finished yet, so no pictures. I haven't followed any pattern, just went ahead and improvised, and it seemed to work.

I was also trying to put together an Easter bunny chart. I might have to do some more work (or rather playing) on this, but here is the first version. I tried many different colours for the bunnies' fur but couldn't settle for anything really. Finally I decided on something neutral, however, when I get down to stitching this, I am almost sure I would use some variegated thread, and perhaps some really crazy colour, too, like purple or blue. :D

Please feel free to improvise yourself and let me know how it turns out.

Happy stitching :)

Easter biscornu cross stitch freebie

Sorry for the misleading title, but I realised that I need to put the cross stitch freebies in the title otherwise they get lost and nobody sees them. :D This happened to my Easter eggs - the blog statistics show that much fewer people saw those than the other patterns.


But now that you are here, I can admit that first you have to suffer through my sewing and stitching pictures before you see the freebie. (Unless you scroll down :D :D) .

Some of you might remember that I bought a new sewing machine not long ago. My regular visitors might even remember that I started to learn how to sew clothes last summer - using the sewing machines in school because my old one gave up. Now I can sew whenever I want, and my own machine is so much better than the ones in school. So here is my first blouse I made with it:



I used this peasant blouse tutorial to make the pattern, but had to adjust it a bit. Maybe it was me, but when I sewed together the parts, I didn't get a nice round edge at the neckline, but at each meeting point there was a pointed edge, or a triangle protruding - so I simply had to cut those off. Also, I measured myself and then added a bit because I wanted a loose fit - and the result has become more a tent than a blouse. :P It is OK, I can wear it, and it is actually a good feeling that I have at least one piece of clothing that is not too tight or too small, as everything seems to be lately. But I think I would like to redo it if one day I have the patience to take it apart, cut the pieces smaller and then sew together again.
The fabric comes from one of my second-hand shopping sprays, I think it might have been a curtain, but I thought "peasant blouse" right away when I saw it.

Then I finished a bag that I started sewing a month or so ago, in school, whenever I had a few minutes at the end of the day, but could never do really much. It is a bag from Cath Kidston's Sew! book, the cover kit that was given with the book. I didn't have to cut anything, just sew it together. Which, of course, would have been boring so I decided to add lining, and then also added a zippered pocket to the lining. I had to take out the zipper once and sew it again, and it is still not perfect, my top-stitching could also be better, but all in all I am happy with it. I am still learning my machine and this was a perfect little project for that.






I have also started making a dress, cut out the pieces but had to stop, my back doesn't want me to sew again. :( Have to rest it for a few days.

I have done quite a lot of cross stitch, I made squares for the charity I like to help. We are making quilts for sick children and also for an orphanage. If you want to join, stitch or perhaps donate some money for the quilts, here is the Facebook group.

Some of my stitched squares:




(I just noticed that the fairy on the right misses her magic wand, need to add it quickly.)



It warms my heart to know that a child will find some happiness in them - a child who very much needs every minute of happiness.


And finally, as a reward for those who managed to stay with me through this long post: my Ester biscornu.




Find the downloadable pdf pattern here.

You will notice that I have changed the colours of the letters. I wanted to sew a nice pink button in the middle but of course, couldn't find one. So I used one without colour and sewed it on with pink decorative stitches.

Happy stitching, my friends. Wishing you all a quickly approaching spring (OK, not for those in Australia, but the rest :D :D ).

Assissi Easter eggs freebie

Here is another Easter cross stitch pattern for you all to stitch: little eggs with assissi technique. Try using variegated thread for them.




Happy stitching

Craft Show in Stockholm and an Easter freebie cross stitch pattern

Warning: lots of photos today :D :D


Last Saturday I went to Stockholm to visit Syfestivalen - which is, although it is modestly called a "sewing festival" - the biggest craft event in Sweden. There was everything: sewing machines, lots and lots of yarn, scrapbooking, jewellery-making etc. However, there wasn´t too much embroidery, only at a few stands and those only had a limited range of patterns.
Anyway, I cannot say I was disappointed, I was there at 11 a.m. and came out at 4.30 - just because I was too tired.

Here are a few photos of the show:


This was the queue before entering.


The crowd.



Some embroidery...



...and some lovely yarn. In Sweden there is a huge variety of wool and knitting seems to be the most popular craft.



I took part in different workshops. I wanted to try some sewing machines, so I went to the Janome stand where they had a workshop making this cute little bag. It is covered with plastic. I think they wanted to make a point how well the machine copes with all kinds of materials - and it certainly did. Because of the plastic it is difficult to see that there is some lovely machine embroidery on the fabric. They had a clever little tool with a pin that held the fabric in one place and as I was sewing, the fabric rotated around the pin, thus sewing a perfect circle using decorative stitches. It was great fun.



Later I tried other machines, too: a Brother and a Pfaff.

I wanted to learn some new embroidery. I checked out Bunka Broderi first. Here we were taught how to work with a tool that looked like a mini punchneedle and some polyester thread - it is supposed to have come from Japan. I made this Easter egg. It was fun but I don´t think I want to do this again - I am not a big fan of polyester :D



I also visited Skapande Broderi, and they were doing some tulle embroidery. Here is my work: a portrait in the style of Picasso - I think I do like this :)



Finally, I also learnt a crochet stitch that looks similar to nålbildning (needle binding?). I have always wanted to learn nålbindning, and I will, sooner or later, but this crochet was really easy, too. I don´t have a photo, unfortunately but will do some of this crochet later and then will take photos.


I did some shopping. I didn´t have much money, so I couldn´t buy the most beautiful yarns, but I enjoyed drooling over them, anyway LOL. I did find some affordable yarn, though, that I really loved: some 100 % silk, and some 100 % wool. Guess which is softer? Yes, the wool. The silk actually feels a bit coarse-ish. Who would have thought?



The wool is on the left, in skeins, the silk is on the right, in balls. Both are off-white.

The brown and red smaller skeins are plant-dyed wool embroidery thread, a gift for a friend.

In the back you can also see my lovely new knitting needles from KnitPro. I saw these in the knitting cafe where I sometimes go, and was so happy to find them here. The cables and the needles are interchangeable, and the cables don´t twist. Here is a closer picture:



I have already tried knitting with them, so here is a small sample of the silk yarn. I tried different stitches and different size needles. The smallest looks the best, but I doubt I will have that much patience to knit with those :D :D




As I came home, I was so excited about all the lovely sewing machines I saw and tried, that I spent hours browsing the webshops. I have been planning to buy one for long. So on Sunday night I took a deep breath and plunged in: bought one. And I decided to go for a really good one: a Pfaff Ambition. Tuesday afternoon it was already here. Oh, I am so happy. It has so many functions, it will take me ages to learn everything - but we have already become friends. :)



To practice, I decided to make a holder for my circular knitting needles - since I was thinking of twisting cables :D.
So I made this - it is really simple, two squares sewn together, with horizontal lines sewn all the way across, creating tubes for the cables. It was good practice for starting and ending the sewing, since it works a bit differently from what I was used to.



I also started to sew a peasant blouse for myself but got a bit tired so it is not done yet.


And now, for my newest cross stitch pattern. I am already thinking of spring, so I came up with a little easter pattern. I made two versions in different colour schemes. I hope lots of people will like it.





Happy stitching, everyone.