Cross stitch pattern for Valentine Day

It's February, and here in the middle of Sweden the snow started to melt. I am sure this is not the end of winter yet, but still, spring cannot be so very far away now. One-two more month...

Anyway, February means Valentine day, and I have made two easy and quick bookmark patterns for you. There is still time to stitch them for that someone special. I hope you enjoy them. Click on the image and it takes you to the downloadable pdf pattern.

I am working on the geometric patterns from last time, I will show you soon.

Meanwhile I am doing lots of patchwork. Bonnie Hunter had a mistery pattern in December, the Good fortune quilt pattern. It consists of lots of tiny pieces, and it requires really good precision. I am struggling, I have to admit, but it is good practice and it will look great. I have just taken apart half of my blocks and sewing them again. Here is a picture from when I thought the blocks are all done, before I noticed that the orange ones are totally the wrong size. I hope to be able to finish them soon and then put the quilt together.

Another interesting thing that I do lately is stitch meditation. I joined a Facebook group where we do a short stitching piece every day, stitching without a real pattern or plan, just for the pleasure of sewing. Some pieces become nothing interesting - and that is OK -, but after a while mine started to shape themselves. I really love doing this.

Here are some of my little pieces:

Aren't they fun? Go ahead and try it! No rules, just enjoy the needle and thread.

That's it for today folks. Happy stitching!!!

Bookmark freebies - and more eco-dyeing from the kitchen

The eco-dyeing saga continues. :D


After all the plants I collected during my walks (see the results here), I got back to the kitchen. I tried red onion skin. Cooked them in water for about an hour then drained them.


I put in the dye quite a few fabric pieces plus a few lace pieces (crocheted and store bought) as well, some of them not white. I simmered them in this dye for an hour then I left them in the pot for a few days. The result is really beautiful.

The darkest piece is some Aida fabric I had that was gray to begin with, unfortunately I don't have a picture of it before. I didn't like that gray, that's why I decided to dye it. The lace that became gray was a light blue originally, here are the two of them next to each other.

I red about avocado skin and pit giving a nice pink colour to wool. I was curious to see if it worked on cotton. I can report: yes, it does. It is really beatiful, at least I think so. Some of the fabric was mordanted with alum and some untreated.

One of the fabric I dyed with the roses before and didn´t like the colour (pale, liveless beige spots) I dyed again in the avocado bath, folding and tyeing it shibori-style. This is the result. Nice, isn´t it?

I also tried pomegranate, with the same method. The result is a lovely golden colour - much nicer than what it looks like in the photo.

Another experiment i did was with a lichen called salted shield lichen or crottle (Parmelia saxatilis, färglav in Swedish, talán pajzszuzmó magyarul, nem vagyok benne biztos). It is so fascinating when you take a bit of grey lichen and it turns things into yellow. At least it is supposed to be yellow on wool. My cotton fabrics turned more to a beige colour but it is nice, I like it. In the second picture you can see a piece that I didn´t wash right away after taking out of the dye but let it dry and only washed a week or so later. The colour has become stronger, especially in the creases of the fabric.

There is more coming, I have bundles in plastic bags and jars full of dye and fabric on my kitchen counter again. Watch this place for more eco-dyeing. :)

And here is another bookmark freebie, or rather three freebies in one pdf file. I loved making them, I hope you will also love stitching them.

Click on the picture for the pdf.

Happy stitching.

Bookmark with birds

The other day my boyfriend, who is a biologist and a keen birdwatcher, heard the news that near our place there is a capercaillie displaying. For my Hungarian readers: siketfajd. So we went and looked at it, it was an amazing sight. Until it wanted to attack us, at which point we had to simply run for it :D

Here is the guy - not a very good photo but I couldn't get any closer.

This bird, however, reminded me of a typical bird motif in Hungarian folk embroidery. It is called a peacock, but I think it looks more like the capercaillie. So I got the inspiration and drew a little bookmark pattern. Wasn't following any pattern, made it up on my own, but I cannot deny the influence of the "peacock motif".

I hope many of you will enjoy stitching it.

Inspirational sayings in cross stitch

Good morning!


It is a sunday morning here, this weekend has not done much for lifting our spirits, at least when it comes to sunshine. But I managed to do some cleaning and that is a good feeling. :)


I have been reading a lot about craftivism lately. In case you haven't heard of it yet, the word craftivism comes from craft + activism. Craftivists use crafts to convey important messages, often political. I love the bold embroidered messages they create. I thought I would like to contribute to this trend. I choose two quotes, the first by Gandhi, the other unknown, and I made them into cross stitch pattern. Perhaps they are not very strong political messages, but I am sure they can help us rethink our priorities. I am planning to stitch them and hang them in my school. I hope some of my readers will find them useful, too.

Click on the pictures, it will take you to the downloadable pdf files.

Happy stitching.

New freebies - finally

I am so sorry I haven't been here for so long. It's been a very busy time with university, work and some illness. It doesn't seem to be any better until the end of this term, but I will try to update the blog more often.

I know I promised a knitting pattern. I have started to make one more pullover, thinking to take notes as I go, but had to stop because I had so much else to do. I will come back to it soon, hopefully. I cannot knit much, only 15-20 minutes at a time usually, because I have a pain in my left shoulder.

Anyway, I would like to show you guys a few pictures of what I did for the university. We worked with embroidery. I have done lots of embroidery, so I wanted to try something new. I learnt needle lace, goldwork techniques and tried embroidery on materials I had never used before: tulle, organza and other very thin, see-through material.

I also learnt the basics of lace-making at university. It was so cool! I wish I had time to do more.

I also created a cross stitch freebie. There are two versions, one for a card and one for a bookmark. I hope this can bring some spring-feeling to you. Enjoy!

Happy Easter everyone! And happy spring!

Biscornu and bookmark inspired by folk patterns

I was reading a book about the folk art of Kászon - now in Romania, originally a Hungarian area. I was, of course, inspired by the many beautiful pictures and patterns.

The following biscornu and bookmark are using elements that are traditional in Kászon, but are also present in many other areas. However, I tried to create a new design using the old motifs, added my own interpretation.

The biscornu can also be made as a mattress pincushion, so I added a piece for the sides.

I hope you like and stitch them.

Spring bookmark - free patterns

It's March! Well, it is not exactly spring yet, at least not here in Sweden, though it is much milder than last year and before. Still, spring cannot be very far away :)

To celebrate, why not stitch a bookmark in your favourite spring colours? Here are some simple free patterns for you to enjoy.


I made two different colour variations on this one, but feel free to use whatever colours you like.

This one can perhaps be even quicker with only a few flower motifs.

Happy stitching :)

If you are new here, why not check out my earlier spring patterns, and also the ones for Easter and St. Patrick's day. Just look for the labels on the right.

Cross stitch bookmark pattern for free

Dear stitching friends,

I have drawn a pattern for a bookmark, you can download it for free. It is based on some Hungarian motifs. I imagined it in two shades of red, but I think it would look lovely in other colour combinations, in only one colour or in variegated thread as well.
I hope you like it.

Click on the picture to get the downloadable pdf file. If anyone has a problem with downloading, let me know, please.

Happy stitching.

Free bookmark pattern - based on an old sampler motif

I have been playing again with some patterns from the old Swedish books that I bought at an antique fare.
Just so that everyone know, I would like to make it clear that I am not using copyrighted material as my own. I know these is a difficult area so I will try to explain how I see this.

First, these books are about 70+ years old, although I am not sure when the copyright would have expired or how. But most of the patterns in them are really patterns that can be found all over Europe. There are patterns that I see again and again on old Hungarian, Ukrainian, German, Austrian, Latvian etc., etc. embroideries, not to mention Quaker an other early American things. It might be because of this that I "feel" they are in the public domain. In Hungary we say folk art is something that wasn't created by one person, but kind of a common creation: we don't know where it comes from originally, and everyone changes it a bit as they use it and share it. So there are endless variations of it.

Secondly, even so I never use these pattern as they are, I wouldn't copy a pattern from a book here and say they are mine. I use them more as inspiration. In this pattern, what I liked was the very simple form of the flowers, and the original red and blue colours. We also have red and blue together in some areas in Hungary. But apart from that, the overall design is my own work: the size of the motif, the layout, the repetitive element, the border etc.

I hope I am expressing myself clearly. If anyone knows for sure that I am in the wrong, please, correct me.

So, after all this, here is the bookmark that I created inspired by some patterns in an old Swedish book, but I wouldn't say they are really Swedish patterns, more like old European sampler motifs. Apart from using the original colour scheme, I also made a more modern, fresher looking one.

Which one do you like more?




Click on the pictures for the pdf.

Small Valentines

Hello, everyone,

I haven´t been blogging for a while. Life has just been busy... well, not much busier than usual, but I am having a little cold and it makes me so tired every day. You know, the type when you have no high temperature, you are able to work, but you feel sick all day, having headaches and drop down by the time you are home from work. And it is just not getting any better. :(

Anyway, I have been playing around with MacStitch - my new cross stitch program. To be honest, I am not very happy with it. It has lots of nice features, I just miss the things I was so used to in my old PCStitch. Like the drag-and-drop function. Anyway, I am sure I will be all right with this after a bit of more practice.

Another strange thing is, it doesn´t let you save in jpg format - only a small, thumbnail version. So I had to learn how to publish pdfs on the blog. Let´s see if it works. :) I am using the thumbnail jpg files to link to the pdfs but they look a bit strange, I am sorry about it, will try to fix this for next time.


Some small Valentine Day´s patterns - click on the picture to go to the pdf and download it.

Oh, and I have bought a huge pile of wonderful books again - I will be back with some photos soon.

Until then, please, let me know how you like this new way of posting patterns. Does it work for you?

Happy stitching
Agi

Boldog karácsonyt. Merry Christmas. God Jul

I know it is not Christmas yet. :)
But soon.

Still, if you want to stitch a bookmark as a gift, you have just enough time for one of the following little patterns.
In Swedish it is so short that I made a smaller version as well that can be used as a gift-tag or a pincushion.

Have fun stitching them. Send me a photo if you have done so. :)

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 :)