Close, but no cigar!

I love me some hand stitching. When life gets to be stressful in the slightest I start to crave a little bit of hand stitching to slow life down and put everything into perspective. Yesterday was one of those days where I was itching to get into my pyjamas and hand stitch up a storm! OOooHHHMMmmmmm....

In preparation for my exciting evening plans, I purchased this London embroidery pattern from Comfort Stitching that I have been coveting for quite some time. I feel certain that it will make the perfect gift for my sister to memorialize the trip that she, my mom and I took to London together.

I gathered all of my material and successfully transferred the pattern onto a lovely piece of white linen that I had hanging about the house....and then I realized my problem....NO EMBROIDERY NEEDLE!! Argh. I spent the next 20 minutes pulling out all of my craft supplies because I could not believe that it could be true. Regrettably it was. Any of you out there have similar crafty tragedies befall your happy crafting night??? Any crazy rampages through your crafting supplies? Do you ever contemplate frenzied emergency trips to the supply store late at night?

Fortunately, the evening was not a complete wash. I managed to located my two baggies of vintage buttons that were missing for another project. One vintage white buttons, another vintage shell buttons. (NOTE to self: perhaps a re-org of the crafting shelves is due??? If one spends more time hunting for craft supplies than crafting, it is a problem.)

Images of how the buttons were used to follow! For now, please enjoy the pictures of the lovely roses that my husband purchased.

Gorgeous, non?!

Sneaky peek

I am participating in my very first swap - { Urban } HOME Goods - a modern swap. I must confess to being very nervous. I am really want my partner to like what I am making!

Nonetheless (just really like that word!), I am indulging in my love of hand stitching with this project. My partner did say that they like embroidery....

Once the hand stitching is finished, I'll move the my machine and stitch something up. I hope that I am on the right track!

Too early to be excited?

(source)

I believe that I have mentioned before...I llllllooooooooove me some hand stitching. Isn't it exciting that Alicia Paulson (Posie Gets Cozy herself) is releasing an embroidery book this summer?

The GREATEST stitch book ever??!

Dunno...I haven't seen every stitching book ever made, but I have seen a good number of them and this is my favourite so far!



A Rainbow of STITCHES, Embroidery and Cross-stitch basics

ISBN: 978-0-8230-1478-1 (0-8230-1478-9)

I should point out that I might be biased. I LOVE hand stitching. I learned how to cross stitch when I was 7 and only stopped recently because I couldn't find any patterns that I wasn't embarrassed to make. This book takes embroidery and cross-stitch and turns them into beautiful patterns that I would love to have around my house (in fact I have already done a pattern from the book - and I just got it on Friday night!).

Here is a close up:

I'm not totally sure if I will just pop this into a little frame to have as a little surprise somewhere on the wall, or if I will build it into a cushion for the couch. I'm open to suggestions! It was so much fun to make!

I love the idea on this page of just taking the linen and wrapping it unframed around an artist canvas. I already had a similar project in mind for my living room.

The contents of the book are separated by colour (thus the RAINBOW part of the title). I adore the vibrant and fresh colours found in the book:

GREEN

PINK

Be sure to take a look at the book and spend some time admiring the RED section!

My only complaint is with the book binding. The book doesn't really lay flat - a spiral binding would have been so much better, especially for cross-stitch patterns (you need to refer the pattern chart frequently!). I will likely just have to scan and print some of the patterns on loose leaf paper...but it is a bit of a hassle for an impatient crafter like me. A hassle, but not an insurmountable one for such a beautiful book!

Happy stitching!