Monday 24 August 2015

Swedish crafts and Santas:)

Hi Everyone !
 
First of all I want to thank you for all your lovely comments on my last post! All your advice and suggestions are greatly appreciated and and I am very pleased that you all took the time to comment ! ! I am going to do what you all suggested and try to add the facial backstitch to my Swedish Santa's face , although I haven't been brave enough yet to do it . . . As for the sky issue I will come back to it later in this post : )
 
Speaking of my Swedish Santa , it occured to me that it would be nice to share my old Swedish crafty leaflet with you since you all love crafts : )
 
So this crafty leaflet is from 2003 and was published in a Swedish Women's magazine . It is full of Christmas ideas and Christmas gifts . There are crochet patterns to make these Christmas pot holders . . .
 
 
. . . and I actually thinking of making some of these since I love to have various pot holders for each season . I also like to give away pot holders as gifts , but I have made so many for everyone in my family that I fear they are a bit sick of pot holders . . . ha ha !
 
There are also other Christmas cross stitching projects (except for my Santa) like these aida band charts :
 
 
Although they are sweet they are not my cup of tea - the charts feel too old-fashioned to me .
 
However , the leaflet also included these two cross stitched mini tapestries which I really like !
 

I love the red and white Christmas designs ; they feel very much like old-fashioned Swedish Christmas , but in a GOOD way : ) ) I also like the fact that you only stitch with one colour since colour changes takes a lot of time . There is a problem though , and that is that the charts are very small . . .

I've added my hand to the charts so that you can see the dimensions.
 . . .and yet again they have no clear gridlines . And to add gridlines myself would be difficult ; the squares are small and I would risk not seeing the symbols if I try to add further lines to the chart . ( In fact , the problem is the same with the chart for my Santa picture . )
Still , I wanted to stitch these - and maybe turn them into cushions? - so yesterday I found a suitable red thread colour (the leaflet only said 'red' thread) and made a start on one of the charts .

 
I really could have done with those gridlines though , since it did not take long before I had to start frogging . . . and frogging and frogging . . ! The progress I have made so far included at least three times of frogging which must be a record for me . Still , I am not giving up , and thankfully , the more I'll stitch on it the easier it'll be to keep track of where I am on the chart .
 
I also have to show you the progress on my Santa from this leaflet : ) To remind you - and myself - this is what this 10-year-old UFO looked like when I picked it up again a week ago :
 

And this is what it looks like now :


I love having this blog to record my own progress ; it is really inspiring to see your own progress like this ! I'm chugging along with the sky - one row up and one row down etc - and it is still slow-going but I am almost getting used to it now : ) And all those dark tree siluettes - that I found so difficult ten years ago - are now done ! Now I'm just keeping my fingers crossed that my mojo will stay with this project so I can get it finished soon , at long last !

Oh , and I almost forgot to show you the ornament that I finished for the Christmas Ornie SAL ( and you can read more about it there too ) :


Nice to have a finish every now and then , isn't it ? !

Happy Stitching ,

Annie

3 comments:

  1. They look great I love the red and white charts. Couldn't you take them to a printer to have them blown up? Then you could add grid lines.

    ReplyDelete
  2. Congratulations on the beautiful ornament finish. Great progress on your Santa, he'll be done in no time:)

    ReplyDelete
  3. You made great progress on your Santa WIP. It is taking more and more shape and looks already great.
    Nice new start on the red winter scenery.

    ReplyDelete

Reading your lovely comments truly makes my day, so thank you!