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.

Swedish bookmark 2

I have been really busy lately. School started on 15th August and I come home so tired every day that I just drop into my bed. I hope I will get used to it soon and have more energy for myself, too.
This weekend I had visitors: my boyfriend´s parents. It was the first time they came to see me. So I had to clean my place, it was high time someone came to visit :D
It went well, we had a nice day with them yesterday. Today we actually managed to get some rest, and I could finish my "t-sirt to dress" project, my crocheted slippers project and did some cross stitching, too. I feel like a human being :D I will show you photos soon, promise :)

For now, here is another bookmark pattern with some Swedish motifs. I am going to stitch this soon, I think. Hope you like it too.

Enjoy it :)

Free cross stitch pattern: Swedish bookmark/Svensk bokmärke

As promised, here is another free cross stitch pattern with Swedish motifs: a bookmark this time. These motifs are actually from old woven pieces but I think they look lovely in cross stitch, too. I hope you like it. :) These are the original colours but of course, feel free to pick your own.


Här är ett nytt korsstygnsmönster med svenska motiv: en bokmärke. Hoppas att ni tycker om den. :)

Weaving experiment

Hi, I am here with more pictures.

I wanted to show you my weaving experiment. I have a loom - in Budapest. I still haven´t figured out how I can bring it here, or if it is cheaper to buy one here than to bring it.
But I wanted to weave. So I used the simple method that I taught my students in 5th grade at school: cardboard-loom. (This year we will have nice "real" looms, the type they make for schools.)

I bought some lovely yarn in Crete last autumn, some left-over balls that were on sale, real cheap. They are absolutely not your traditional weaving yarn, but I wanted to see how they work. They are boucle and are about 75-85 % wool, really nice and soft. The grey is a bit thicker than the rest.

Before I only wove with strong cotton warp thread and and thick wool yarn for weft, now I wanted to try out what happens if I use the same yarn in both directions.

So this is how it started: I had a huge piece of cardboard. It is quite thick and difficult to cut so I glued on some cereal boxes at the end, double, to use for the nooks that I cut at about 0.7 cms.

Then I warped the "loom" with black and white (or rather natural colour) yarn.

And I just started to weave. First I went with the weaving needle just under-over, under-over. It was a bit slow.

Then I used a ruler that I put under every other warp thread. This way I only had to go under-over in one direction, and I just put the ruler in a standing position and passed the yarn through the hole in the other. That was much faster.


Then I decided I wanted to try out making my own heddles and I spent about an hour doing that. This way weaving goes much faster. I am not sure if it was worth the time, I mean I am only making one piece on this "loom" and then I have to warp again and make the heddles again, but I don´t really mind. I just wanted to see if it worked. And I am happy it did.:)

The fabric I am making is really nice and soft, I am not beating it down too hard, just pull the weft down with my fingers so it is quite loose, but the fibers of the boucle yarn stick together so there are no holes in the fabric.

I have an idea what I want to do with it, but I am not sure it will work out. When I started I didn´t know what it will become, or thought perhaps a scarf, but now I would like to make it into a garment. So perhaps I will weave two parts, and then connect them with knitting or crochet and make a vest or something. It all depends on how long the yarn will go or if I can find some more. It is the problem when you start a project with leftover yarn and you actually have no idea how much you need. :( So at the moment all I can say is: I will see.

Unfortunately I had to stop weaving because my back was causing me trouble all summer, and it didn´t like they way I was weaving, which was propping up the loom on a chair and sitting on another one in front of it - I had to bend forward too much. So now I need to rest my back and then find a better position before I continue.

I didn´t write a detailed description how to make the loom or the heddles but if anyone is interested, just tell me and I can put together a tutorial.


I will be back soon with some more Swedish cross stitch patterns.

Felt embroidery

As promised, I would like to show you my latest felt embroidery.

I have made some lovely key-rings and telephone holders.

A closer picture of the one with cross stitch insert.

This is how they look when opened.

They are in the shop now, together with some older works - there is a small gift shop at a nearby farm where they have a cafe and horse-riding, animal-patting etc. on Sunday afternoons. If you want to buy my things, come to Edeby Gård. :D
This is "my corner" in the shop:

And here are the ones I didn´t make for sale but for my own pleasure.

The following pieces were all made without any pattern. When I started them, I wasn´t sure how they would turn out. Somehow it makes me feel so good when I do this: no limitations, no need to do it "right", I can just do whatever I want - and I really love the way they look. Not sure what I will do with them. All, except Kitty, are very small. Perhaps I will sew them together on a bigger piece and frame them.

Oh, and what is even better: all of them are made using scrap pieces of felt, and I also used the leftover short pieces of thread from other project.

Blue Flower

Golden Flower

Portrait

Kitty

Swedish biscornu - free pattern

Hej, jag har gjort en svensk biscornu korsstygnsmönster för er.

Well, I hope that above sentence is more or less correct. ;) I am very busy lazy learning Swedish.

Anyway, my newest cross stitch pattern for you is based on Swedish motifs. To be exact, motifs from Skåne, in the south of Sweden.

One characteristics of these patterns is that all the surface is covered with stitches. They have created huge pieces with this method. True, they often used low-count Aida and thick (sometimes wool) embroidery thread. Also, lot of embroidery was made with long-armed cross stitch (although I am not so sure if this is typical of Skåne or some other parts of the country) which gives a better coverage.

I love the colour combinations of these patterns, I tried to follow them as closely as I could.

First, here is a biscornu pattern. I hope you will like it. I have some more plans, so watch this place!

I have a lot of new photos to share with you: I have made some lovely felt-embroidery, I have my own space in a local craft shop, I have sewn a curtain for my balcony door and I have started a weaving experiment. I would like to show you all of these. Unfortunately I have no idea where my camera cable is... Cleaning in progress, so there is hope. As soon as I find it, I will be back. :)

Hope you all are having a lovely summer - not like us here in Sweden. :( Summer has been cancelled this year.

I am back - photos from Hungary

Hi, everyone!

I am back from my trip to Hungary. It was lovely, the weather was really hot, 37-39 degrees Celsius! Then I came back to Sweden and it is barely 20 - I wish there could be some compromise between the two. :(

I didn´t do much needlework lately, I crocheted a shrug and finished knitting two scarves for my daughter and my friend we stayed with in Hungary. Of course, I forgot to take photos. :( Will ask them to send me a photo if they can.


Right now I am having internet problems but I will try to come online once in a while at my boyfriend´s place. Please forgive me if I can´t answer comments right away.


Here are some photos from the trip. Thanks Stephen for letting me use them - he took all the pictures.

For some reasons he took lots of photos of me like this - do I need to take it as a hint??? ;)

With Nelli and Rita, two friends from my former school.

Yarn-bombing in Budapest :)

On Margaret Bridge in Budapest - on the left you can see the tip of Margaret Island.

With my best friend, Panni - we have been friends since primary school. We stayed at their place and went for a weekend trip together.

My beautiful daughter. Eszter and her boyfriend. Oh, how I miss her already!

I met some of my former class that graduated from high school in 2008. I am so proud of them all!

With Panni on the highest mountain (hill? 1014 m) of Hungary. Perhaps this is not the best angle to take a photo of me. Hm...

Hungarian bread. I think this might be an explanation for our weight problems.

Two "mer-ladies" on Tisza-lake.

Lovely Transsilvanian embroidery at a market in Pásztó.

One of the ladies selling things helped me try on an old fashioned skirt of the folk costume. :)

And finally, the only photo of the person who made all the other pictures: Stephen.
We had a lovely time together.