Embroidery resources,

The other day on Pinterest, I came across this fantastic download.  It's a whole embroidery book for alphabets that someone has scanned as a free resource.  While I loved the designs in the book, alphabets are not something I'd personally have a great deal of use for.  But after some additional googling of the author, I came across this little beauty...

The Handbook of Stitches by Grete Peterson and Elsie Svennas

 

Even though all the photography is in black and white, the charming appeal of the embroidery shines through,

 due to the age of the book (circa 1970 for the english edition), all the designs have a real retro flavour,

embroidery for me has a timeless nature,

 and this book makes me feel inspired to stitch!

I struck lucky and got my copy via Amazon Marketplace, and am very glad that on a dismal, grey and wet spring day this little ray of sunshine arrived in the post.

Penguins the sequel...

The latest issue of the online magazine from Crafteroo is out,

containing the next installment in the penguin family of softie patterns.

Click here for a taster of what's inside and also more information on how to purchase a copy, it's only £1.50 (that's about $2.35).  Bargain for crafty ideas over the Easter break!

wip,

...in between the sneezing now it's that hayfever time of year, in progress is the next lot for Project 3.  Am just deciding how big the ears should be.

A wanderer returns,

My husband was away last week with 30 (ish) students from where he teaches, and on this years global tour of new and interesting places he can find to loose his wallet and/or bank cards and/or keys, he found himself in San Francisco.

Before said bank cards went AWOL, he did manage to purchase a few little treats,

This book of postcards from the Museum of Modern Art and a stash of fabric,

from the Britex Fabric Store and Mendel's on Haight Street which I'm sure I'll have much fun sewing with.  

I love my husband dearly but if he looses one more thing, one more time.... grrrrrr! 

Owl,

As promised, here is the chart for the Owl counted cross stitch motif.

As with the Fox, the finished counted cross stitch is only small, 1 1/2" x 1 1/2" (or 4 x 4 cm) and fits perfectly onto the laser cut disc (which is available from The Workroom) and works out at roughly 13 stitches to an inch (or 2.5 cm), but can also be stitched onto any aida or evenweave fabric.  The finished size will change depending on what count fabric you use.

So, in addition to what you decide to stitch the design onto, you will also need, thread (I call it stranded cotton, is it embroidery floss in the USA?) in the following colours (I used Anchor thread and have added the shade numbers in brackets as a guide), dark brown (382), dark grey (400), mid brown (936), brown (379), blue grey (850) and cream (386), plus a fine embroidery needle and some small scissors.

Follow the chart below for your stitching.

(click on the chart to enlarge it to stitch from)

The surrounding circle is just a guide for the edge of the laser disc, and I split the stranded cotton and worked with 2 strands in the needle.

 

Happy stitching!