Simply Stitchy

I'm a bit of a hopeless romantic at heart and decided that this year, instead of buying the usual commercially produced cards and gifts, I'd have a go at making something myself. I've designed this cross stitch chart to be simple and easy to make.  It's free for you to use if you want, as long as its for personal use not commercial.  The stitching measures about 4" x 4" when completed on 14hpi aida, so you will need at least a 6" square of fabric.  Each cross stitch uses two strands of embroidery cotton.   I only used two colours - Red and Black.  A downloadable chart can be found on my Deviant Art page http://fubsnspuds.deviantart.com/ . This is what I made with it: Let me know if you use the chart - leave me a comment.  I'd love to know what you make from it.  Bye for now Olly

I was in need of a bit of retail therapy last week so popped into my local fabric shop for a bit of window shopping on different yarns and some kit-gazing. Kit-gazing is what I call it when I just go in and check out what cross stitch kits are available and which ones I would like to do next.  (I don't buy any T, just look, honest). Anyway, there I was head down in the bargain bucket full to bursting with cross stitch kits, when I overheard a conversation between two women standing next to me. They were also looking at the cross stitch kits and were awe struck at some of the beautifully designed and detailed kits that are available these days. The main problem they had though was having never done counted cross stitch before, they wouldn’t know how or where to start. Oh, I thought, that’s not good. Now, I’ve been cross stitching for years, so it never occurred to me that to anyone one who doesn’t know how, cross stitch kits, especially counted cross stitch kits, can be a bit da...

My sewing box is crammed full with all sorts of odds and ends. Threads for general mending, needles, embroidery skeins, buttons, safety pins, the quilting foot from my sewing machine, rotary cutters, scissors, beads, bits of aida, yarns of wool, knitting needles.  The general bits and bobs that stitchers tend to accumulate over years of crafting.  In fact I've managed to accumulate so much stuff that the first sentence should read "my sewing boxes" as I actually have two. I recently had to empty them both out as I couldn't find my needle threader.  Now, the little red one is a relatively new addition so I sort of knew more or less what was at the bottom of that one.  Not my needle threader unfortunately, only some rather nifty dressmaking pins with hearts on the end and my glow in the dark embroidery skeins. The blue box has been with me for the best part of twenty years so is slightly fuller and the finds at the bottom of that ...