Quintessential Frisian Smalls

The long awaited collaboration by Jacob from Modern Folk Embroidery,  Roxy Floss Co and Evertote, is here at last and the main aim is to teach us some finishing techniques, while making five different smalls.

The plan is to stitch and finish one each month, with a break in December, (to accommodate stitching the Christmas Countdown) finishing the final piece in January 2026.

To prepare, I wanted a special project bag to keep everything together, so I asked Pauline from Sew Be Bags to make me a custom one.

 

As always it’s beautiful, thank you Pauline.

Part 1 is a small pin pillow.

The technique for this month was to finish the pillow by whip stitching the edges together and I had no problem, but what did throw me was adding my initials on the back.

I remembered that there was no ‘J’ in the Friesian alphabets, which is my middle initial, and without giving much thought to it I decided to  put an Algerian eye in the centre, leaving a five stitch gap between the other letters, as seen here.

Then I read the chart some more, where Jacob explained that the ‘I’ was often used in place of the ‘J’, so I frogged the Algerian eye and stitched the ‘I’ in its place.  Luckily the spacing between the letters was still even, leaving three stitches each side and with that changed, I fully finished the pin pillow.

That was when I noticed my biggest blunder……..can you see what it is?

Originally I had positioned the Algerian eye at the very centre of the pillow, meaning the ‘I’ also ended up centred, but I hadn’t taken into account was that the ‘S’ and the ‘H’ weren’t the same number of stitches wide and the whole thing is off centre.

Well, it can stay like that because I’m not going to change it now, but it's definitely something to remember for the future.

Still in a 'Red' mood,  I sorted out my project for August Cross Stitch Camp and this months challenge is to stitch something new to us.

I decided to go with a new designer to me, Simone de Jong-van Wissen from Atelier Soed idee.

I purchased 'Simone's Smalls' some time ago but have never got around to stitching any of the charts, so what better time to take the plunge.

I've decided to work on  ‘Simone’s Double Pincushion’ 

and because I love the combination of Blue and Red thread on one of the other designs, I’m going to add a touch of the Blue to this too!

Happy Stitching!

Sue

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 Simone’s Double Pincushion

Designer - Simone de Jong-van Wissen -  Atelier Soed idee

Fabric – 36ct Linen – Porcelain – Roxy Floss Co

Threads – Roxy Floss Co - Poinsettia & Blue Christmas (from 2022 Christmas Countdown)

 

‘All Year Round’ Stitch-a-long

I’m on a high and a low today

The high is that I have completed the final segment of the ‘All Year Round Sal that was being published in Cross Stitcher Magazine every month for the last year and I’m sad for exactly the same reason.

I’m going to miss the anticipation of what the next flower might be and incidentally, I was totally wrong last month when I said I thought we would end with SunFlowers, Lol!

 The August segment was in fact Pink Waterlilies and a pretty Blue dragonfly.

I’m not going to lie, the back stitch, despite the fact I don’t mind doing it, was a bit of a pig, when trying to do it on 18ct Aida with stitches falling halfway along or in the centre of the block, but all in all I’ve really enjoyed working on this so much.

I was considering putting it in a frame but in the end I found an old hoop that was the perfect size.  I gave it a couple of coats of green acrylic paint and then added an organza bow and sprig of artificial flowers.

I still need to add a covered board on the back, but will tackle that at the weekend.

 Happy Stitching!

Sue

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Project Details

All Year Round Sal – from Cross Stitcher Magazine

Designer – Amanda Butler

Fabric – 18ct Aida – White Zweigart

Threads – Anchor and DMC’s

Happy Stitching!

Sue

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Lolly Claus – Satsuma Street

OK, so we are into the second half of the year now , so I decided it was time for a bit of change from my usual Joan Elliott Christmas ornaments and make a start on the two ornaments  I make for my goddaughters two girls each year.

Every year so far they have had various Mill Hill ornaments,  but this year I’ve gone with Satsuma Street for a change. 

There are not as many sparkles on these ones, but oh how I love Jody’s designs, because they are just as cute, if not more so!

This one is ‘Lolly Claus’

I backed it with sticky backed felt and couldn’t decide on a beaded hanger or twisted cord.  In the end I went a Pink and Red cord!

Happy  Stitching!

Sue

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Project Details

Chart – Lolly Claus

Designer – Jody Rice – Satsuma Street

Fabric - Perforated Paper - Kit

Threads – DMC

My Stitching Box – Jeanette Douglass

It seems like I’ve been missing in action for ages, but in fact it’s only been just under a month since my last post.

I’ve actually been enjoying a short break on the Isle of Wight and despite it only being around 4 hours away from where I live, I’ve only ever been there on a day trip.   This time, my cousin and I took a five day break and got to see a lot more of island, including the donkey sanctuary and some of the pretty villages, 

as well as enjoying the beautiful gardens of our hotel,

and waking up to this amazing view from my balcony every morning.

There wasn’t a lot of time for stitching while I was away but I did manage a new start, which I will come to at a later date, but over the past month I surprised myself and managed quite a bit, including a big finish.

As you probably know, Cross Stitch Camp 2025 is well underway and when Sheri, Colorado Cross Stitcher told us that the July challenge was to stitch something from our favourite designer, I knew straight away I was going to be working on  ’My Stitching Box’ from Jeanette Douglass again.

I originally started this project as my Leap Year Day start on Feb 29^th 2024, and started and finished the band sampler, although I never FFo’d it at the time. 

I also finished the box top  before putting it away to stitch on other things.

Once I knew what the July challenge was going to be, I decided to pull it out again and stitch Pin Cube.

Now, I know I have said this before, but Jeanette’s colour schemes are always beautiful and once again she has hit the nail on the head with this collection.  They especially come together in the 1 over 1 flower on the top of the cube. 

When it came to the fully finishing, I decided that I wanted it to be firm and opted to use crushed walnut shells for the filling.

I was enjoying working with the silks so much that I decided to keep stitching on the other parts of the box and eventually finished stitching and fully finishing them all.

First was the needle case.

The chart didn’t suggest adding beads to the front, but I had a lot left over from the band sampler and decided to use them.

Then came the scissor case,

Two scissor fobs,

and lastly the pin pillow, which was also filled with walnut shells.

The final thing I had to do was to add some backing and ribbon to the previously stitched band sampler to complete the roll.

And there we have it........a completed Stitching Box!

Happy Stitching!

Sue

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 My Stitching  Box  

Designer – Jeanette Douglas

Fabric – 32ct Zweigart Evenweave – Antique White

Threads – Classic Colorworks Belle Soie, NPI Silk, Gloriana Silk Floss & Rainbow Gallery Splendor

Log Cabin Christmas, Mrs Snow - Little House Needle Works

I just managed to squeeze in one last new start and finish before the end of June and that brings us nicely to the middle of the year.

This little square is the 7^th in the ‘Log Cabin Christmas’ series, so just two more to go.

It’s also time for a quick round up of my progress for June.

I started the month with 7 wips, (3 of which I didn’t touch at all) and I had 5 new starts.

Then there were 5 finishes and 11 Fully Finishes, of which 7 were the components of the Bee Contained Etui.

Despite not touching my stitching for 7 out of the 30 days, all in all I think I had a good month.

 

Happy Stitching!

Sue

 

Project Information

 

Chart- Log Cabin Christmas – Part 6- In the Woods Deer

Designer – Little House Needleworks

Fabric – 32ct Zweigart Linen – Raw

Threads – Called for Classic Colorworks

‘Flowers for You’ - Blackbird Designs

 I’m so pleased that I decided to stitch this Blackbird design to commemorate what would have been my mum’s 99^th birthday on the 27^th May, because it turned out so pretty.

I love the subtle colours and the flowers reminded me of her favourite Sweet Peas, although I do realise they are not actually Sweet Peas.

I didn’t uses any of the called for threads on this occasion, because I need to try and use up some of my ever growing thread stash, but I did try to keep to a similar pallet.   The threads I used are listed below.

You will see that I added mums initials and her birthdate along the bottom.  

Update - Just realised, thanks to a kind commenter, that I have the year of her birth wrong.  It should be 1926, so prepare for the frog to arrive!

 Next job, finish it as I little pillow!

Happy Heavenly Birthday Mum 💖 

I'm also extremely excited because I received a very special box all the way Canada over the weekend.  

Can you guess what's in it?

It's the 'Quintessential Frisian Smalls' Sal from Modern Folk Embroidery, with Evertote, and Roxy Floss Co.

We've all seen this beautiful chart, I'm sure, but I'm not going to show your everything else that was in the box because I don't want to spoil the surprise for those that may not have received theirs yet.  What I will say though is that you're not going to be disappointed!

How on earth am I going to be restrained enough to wait until August 1st to start stitching this gorgeousness?

Happy Stitching!

Sue

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Flowers for You

Designer – Blackbird Designs

Fabric – 36ct ‘Antique Sampler Collection’ – Nicholas Flamel (Etsy)

Threads –Own Conversion

Weeks Dye Works (Bright Leaf, Jay Bird, Oscar, Sandcastle & Tarragon,) Roxy Floss Co – from Advents 2022 – 24 (Birthstone, Chantilly Cool to Yule & Royalty Free

 

‘Bee Contained’ Etui by Betsy Morgan

When I started this project back in August 2023,  it was on the back of finishing the 'Virgin Queen's Stitching Wallet' , from the first ‘Willing Hands’ book.

There were so many beautiful Etui and Sewing Box projects in there, and I wanted to stitch them all.

Then I saw somewhere on line, a photo of the ‘Bee Contained Etui', in the Willing Hands Book 2, and knew I had to stitch it too!

I can really recommend these two books if you are looking to stitch a sewing box because there are so many beautiful designs in them.

I collected all the materials together and started stitching, but what I hadn’t realised at the time was that the designer, Betsy Morgan was inspired to design it by my wonderful and very talented ‘on-line’ friend Stasi Buhrman, who is a long time friend of hers.    

Stasi is better known in our community on Instagram as  #stasibee  and she has a blog, Bee-mused and Bee-stitching.

I stitched the larger piece for the box itself first

and put it away for a while, but then in February this year I decided that I needed to get it finished and quickly finished all of the remaining pieces.

After that, it was put away again because I was worried about the detailed finishing that was needed, but this past weekend, I took the bull by the horns, so to speak.

The Etui consists of a six sided box, topped with two sweet Bee charms.

A Needle case

A Scissor Fob

A Thread Winder

Two Measures, one in centimetres and the other in inches

And last be not least is the cutest little Pin Cushion, in the shape of a tiny Bee Hive.

All that remains to do, is to acquire a couple of 'Bee' counting pins and I'll be extremely happy!

I already have another Sewing Box in progress but it’s not from either of the books. 

This one is from Jeanette Douglass, so I’m going to start working on this one again!

 

Happy Crafting!

Sue

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Chart – Bee Contained – from Willing Hands 2

Designer – Betsy Morgan

Fabric – 32ct Linen – Lemon Squash – Nicholas Flamel Designs (Etsy)

Threads – Gloriana Florimell Silks

 

 

 

My Sewing Box

Started 29/2/2024

Designer -  Jeanette Douglas

Fabric – 32ct Murano Linen

Threads – Called for Classic Colouworks Belle Soie, NPI Silk, Gloriana Silk & Rainbow Gallery Splendor

Beads – Mill Hill