More Swedish charts

I have made a little Swedish pattern, the Dala horse, which can be almost called the symbol of Sweden. Originally coming from the province of Dalarna, the Dala horse is made of wood and painted. I know, I know, there are quite a few cross stitch patterns of it out there already, but I wanted to try my hand with it.

I wanted to keep it simple and easy, I had in mind some quick Christmas cards or gift tags, perhaps a pincushion or a scissor fob. But when Stephen saw it, he said it wasn't good enough: the Dala horse should have more decorative harness. So I made another version, still small and easy, just a little bit fancier.

I will show you both, you can decide which one you want to stitch. The traditional colours are red, with green, blue, yellow and white decoration but of course there are lots of other versions, so it absolutely all right to change the colours.

Happy stitching. :)

By the way, one of my few patterns for sale is a doll in folklore costume from Dalarna. Just in case someone is interested, look at my Pages.

New finishes and a Christmas freebie

Hi, everyone, how are you doing?

Have you started your Christmas stitching yet?

I have made a free Christmas pattern. Apart from the usual motifs I used some Swedish motifs that I really love. The deer is used widely in Sweden, although it is quite a universal pattern all over Europe. But the Julbok, the goat is typical Swedish, as is the crown. I hope you like it. You can use them together or one by one on gift tags or cards.

I have finished two pieces recently: one is Celtic Knot by Textile Heritage. I have stitched it on an afghan, I am collecting different Celtic patterns on it.

The other is my own Dove that I published in my last post. To be honest, I myself didn't think it will turn out this good, I am very happy with it. I used variegated threads, Anchor 1204 on the wing and DMC 4110 on the body. For the wing and the tail I stitched in rows, to have this stripey appearance, for the body I stitched in little block or circles so it became more blotchy. I made one little change: I backstitched a circle around the eye. I felt the eye was a bit too small.

What do you all think? What colours would you use?

Right after I wrote about my bargain finds last time, I happened to be in the Red Cross shop again. (Only by accident, you understand.) This is part of what I came away with (I bought lots of buttons and yarn to take to school, too).

One of these books is called "Embroidery, cutting, sewing", the other "Rare cross stitch".

Lots of embroidery fabric, a thread holder in wood and a tool to wrap yarn on (what is it called?), and some more yarn, and bags of different embroidery threads:wool, cotton, linen, perle.

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A fabric giveaway

Hi, Friends,


there is a fabulous fabric giveaway at Maureen's. Go to her blog and sign up!

Needlework books and a free pattern

Good morning!

We have autumn break in Sweden so finally I have time and energy to write a blog post. I have been planning to write for weeks but life has been hectic. Not to mention that my back has been causing me so much pain that I couldn't do much. I am still in pain but it is getting a bit better. Fingers crossed, please, everyone. :)


So, I have been planning to show all the beautiful books I have bought or received recently. Sweden is full of treasures, as I have told you a few times. Not only can you buy lovely old fabric, weaving, lace and embroidery in every second-hand shop but they also have bookshelves in those shops, there are lovely used book-shops and you can find books in he "loppis" which is something in between a garage sale and a second-hand shop.

Here are my latest finds: embroidery, textile art and sewing patterns. They are not the latest fashion, but I just love them, it is so much fun looking at old patterns - and if I ever get to that level in sewing, I might be able to adjust them a bit. And the embroidery patterns don't age, right? :)


I found the first book in this Encyclopedia of Home Needlework (or something like that) at a loppis, then bought the second one from the internet. I am looking for the rest (20 volumes altogether) but they are not easy to find. No wonder: this is a fantastic book, with basically everything you can think of and some more. It is in Swedish but that is not so much a problem any more :D

Here is another lovely book and a page with some beautiful old weaving. I wonder what the three-legged figure means - it appears more than once on woven clothes.

This one I bought on the internet. It is not only textiles but all kinds of crafts, e.g. woodcarving, basket weaving etc.

These two folders I found at a Red Cross shop. One is needlework (weaving and embroidery), the other is sewing patterns.

This is the perfect example of the sewing patterns from the 70s. I think it is hilarious! I have threatened Stephen to make him something like this if he doesn't behave LOL.

And there is one more folder with tons of sewing patterns and very useful instructions. I think I will use it in school.

These two little pattern booklets I received as a gift from Stephen. He found them on Tradera (the Swedish e-bay) and bought them for me. Can you see the name and year? 1962! They are lovely. You can look forward to some more Swedish inspiration in my patterns.

Let's go over to what I have been stitching lately. Not much (hanging head in shame). But some. I found this Christmas card pattern in my UFO bag. I think I started it 3 years ago but when I saw I won't finish it before Christmas, put it down. Then repeated the same the next year. Last year I didn't even take it out. But now I managed to finish it. It is a DMC kit that I received from a friend on crossstitchforum.com and it uses lots of metallic thread. I actually loved stitching it. So many people complain about metallics, especially DMC but I had no trouble at all. And I love the overall effect. You just can't have too much bling, can you? :D The colours are so unusual and still so great. (I lost one of the buttons - but have since found it.)

I have made some small felt ornaments too: Swedish hearts and Hungarian tulips. I have been trying to teach myself how to draw Hungarian folk patterns (and other patterns - I have discovered Zentangle!) On the gray fabric you can see my embroidered doodling, the traditional tulip with French knots and rice stitch - makes it very modern, don't you think so? I made that without drawing the pattern on the fabric, just improvised. Will use this piece of fabric for other experiments.

This is another gift. Stephen's parents visited us a few weeks ago. After they went home, his mum sent me this. It is an Eva Rosenstrand kit, a tablecloth, that she started long ago but as her eyes are not good enough to stitch, she sent it to me to finish. Isn't that really kind of her? I love this, I will surely stitch it.

Perhaps you want to have a look at my weaving experiment? I couldn't do much on it, it doesn't go well with backache. :( So I have done this much:

Two small butterflies that I stitched for a charity organisation for quilts.

I took out another UFO, my Celtic afghan and started a Celtic knot pattern, this is what I am working on right now. I love it but I am so sad because I cannot keep the back of the stitching neat. Too many colour changes. :(

Sorry that it has become such a long post with so many pictures. I hope you still find it interesting.

Finally, another free cross stitch pattern. This is a dove, it has a bit of a folk art feeling to it but still modern. At least that was the intention :) I hope y ou like it. Enjoy stitching it.

Apple of my eye - cross stitch freebie

Hi, everyone, how are you all?
I have been resting a lot this weekend, having a little backache and was trying to rest so it doesn´t get worse. Not sure if I managed, we will see in the morning.

Anyway, I drew another pattern for you to stitch.
Enjoy :)

Love - free cross stitch pattern

Hi, everyone, hope you are doing well and stitching or knitting or sewing etc with all your might. :)


I am doing all right. Have been busy, as usual, not much free time for crafting and even that is often taken up by Pinterest and other internet sites and blogs. Sometimes I feel guilty that I am just looking and looking instead of doing but I know that I need such times, and they are worth the time because later I can use a lot of the inspiration I receive. It's like input and output.
I hope this makes sense. Do you ever feel like this? Do you have "collection" periods to be followed by more active crafting times?


It was on Pinterest that I saw a funny and really cute way of writing the word Love. I liked it so much that I made it into a cross stitch pattern. It was fun finding out a way to draw it, and I am sure it would be even more fun to stitch it.

I am planning to use my favourite DMC variegated for it: 115. What colour would you choose? Solid or variegated? Or perhaps more than one?

I hope many of you will enjoy stitching it.

See you soon.

Agi

I am back - and a free cross stitch pattern

Hi, everyone,

I knew that I haven't written on my blog for a long time, but I didn't realise it was more than a month! I am sorry for being absent. School is really busy right now, and I was ill a bit - nothing serious, just some fever, but had to lie down on the weekends.

Anyway, I am back, and although I haven't had time to do much, I have a few things to show you - whenever I get to taking photos. Is it so hard for everyone else, taking photos of your projects? It is not such a big deal, still, it takes ages for me to get started. So watch this place for some pictures soon.

Until then, perhaps you would like to see the beautiful autumn in Sweden:

In school we celebrated the European Day of Languages on 26th of September. Every class was appointed a country, my class got Hungary and had to dress up accordingly. Here are a few pictures.

I am wearing an apron that was my great-aunt's. It is cross stitched. Isn't it wonderful?

And now, as October has arrived we started to prepare for Halloween. So I made a little cross stitch pattern that can be used for Halloween - but for other occasions as well. You can stitch it for a Harry Potter fan, or even for Valentine's day. It can be a bookmark (although a bit bigger than the usual size) or a bellpull. Have fun with it.