Saturday 20 August 2011

pattern: hardly bear

it seems like ages since i’ve had a new pattern to share with you, and i am excited to say, that the time has finally come! may i present, ‘hardly bear’:


this pattern is a little different - it’s customizable. where the example says “sweet” is left blank on the chart, and i’ve included charts for a whole bunch of useful adjectives, such as awesome, silly, clever, cute, pretty, etc. so you can make the most appropriate crafty message for the recipient of your masterpiece.


i’ve also included an alphabet chart, so that you can put your own adjective in there if it’s one i didn’t think of.


you can download this pattern as a pdf from my etsy shop
i hope you love it! 

Friday 12 August 2011

finishing things...

it turns out that i am great at blogging about works in progress, but when i finish a project, i’m so keen to move on to the next one that i forget to show it off.
remember the ‘marriage of the minds’ sampler i was working on earlier this year? i finished it ages ago, and was going to wait til i’d had it all nicely framed before taking proper pictures of it. and then i forgot! it’s been hanging on the wall here in our new house for weeks!


there’s a lot of great detail in this one, so can i suggest clicking here to see an enlarged version?

i loved every moment of working on this piece, and have now become completely obsessed with the drawn thread’s beautiful, timeless designs. i’m currently working on the birth band (with important details left blank til january!), and modifying the colours so it tones in better with this sampler.

as i said in my previous post about this, my favourite part of this sampler is the bit i modified - in the original pattern the two figures at the top were a man and a woman, but i changed them to make them look like my partner and i on our not-quite-wedding day. that little change makes it all the more personal, which a sampler like this should be. the whole reason i decided to stitch this (apart from it’s general beauty) is that it features the sonnet i read to my partner on that very day.


i also love that, while most of the piece is cross stitched, it includes a range of other pretty stitches, and they add variety and texture to the overall look.


there’s a lot of symbolism incorporated in the sampler too - the two houses join through love to make one house, the rabbits are for fertility, the bluebirds for happiness, the owls for wisdom, and so on. so much love and thought has been put into every aspect of it, and that makes me so happy.

i’m pretty proud of this one, i must say…