So my first proper post is a cross-stitching one. This has been the craft I’ve been into the longest…..ever since a teacher realised I was getting my sister to do my knitting homework so gave me one to do instead!
This was done a present for my other half’s nephew’s first birthday. I thought a home-made gift would be nice. It’s surprisingly easy to do as well. And, while I love big projects, sometimes a nice quick and straightforward one is just what you need!
I started off by buying the frame I knew I wanted to use. This one came from Ikea and was in a pack of two for €4.50. I liked the bright bold colour of it and the size was perfect. I then measured the size of the window of the frame and worked out the count of fabric I needed. I stitched this on 16 count Aida fabric in a cream colour (I got this from eBay years ago). The count worked out at 180x80 and so I was able to measure this out on graph paper. This made it easy to find the right layout and pictures for my design that would fit perfectly in the frame.
The letters and numbers used were from a free pattern I got a few years ago. The balloons came from download from the DMC website. There’s a great source of free patterns out there if you’re just starting or even looking for something simple which are great to make use of. The joy of doing something like this is that you can suit it to the person in question. This one had balloons on it, another I did had trains and cars, another a teddy bear. It really is all up to how much space the name itself takes up and what you can fit around that! I was lucky with the name Ryan for my first go but a longer name would lead to less space. While normally I’d stitch in DMC (as all my books are in that and it’s a bit easier to get for me), this was done in Anchor thread that I had handy in the colours I wanted. I think children’s’ projects always look better stitched in bright colours so that’s what I aimed for. The joy of a design like this is that, once you have it drawn out, you don’t have to follow a chart for colours as you can just decide them yourself.
The frame I put this in had a cardboard piece in, which most do. I used this to attach the fabric to so that it was guaranteed to stay central to the frame. I just used some double sided sticky-tape around the back and trimmed any excess fabric. And voila! All told this took about an hour to plan out (once I had measured the frame & had the fabric count) and maybe another 2 hours of stitching time. It seems to go down well considering that, after showing a few friends it (who always want to know what I’m working on), they wanted ones for their little people! Slowly working my way through that list of names and dates but thanks to Ryan for starting it all off!
