Freebie: 🌷 Spring Floral Tile 🌷

Free .PDF at my Dropbox: Spring Floral Tile

Please Note: You may see a screen asking you to create a Dropbox account, but you do NOT need to create an account to view and save the file. Scroll down the pop-up sign-up box and click on "No thanks continue to view" just under the big blue Create Account button. If you have any problems downloading, please let me know - my e-mail is in my sidebar on the right, under the pretty postage stamps.

You might remember my last post about this project, my entry in DMC's Spring Florals Instagram Contest? The Contest closed in May, and after a lot of suspense, it turned out that I wasn't one of the five winners. To view the winners, visit @dmc_embroidery.

But I really enjoyed designing and stitching this cute little garden, and I thought you might like to stitch it too! So I'm sharing the pattern for free, for personal and charitable stitching (as usual, please don't sell the pattern itself, or items made from it).

If you look closely, there are several mini-motifs. The center square would make a lovely ornament, one of the corner flowers could be a nice scissors fob, and the line of tulips could be repeated along the edge of a dishtowel or pillowcase 😊

If you do stitch up your own Spring Floral Tile, or any variation of thereof, I would so very much love to see your work 💕 Please send me a picture, or a link to your photo! My e-mail is in the sidebar, and I'm @aureliaeglantine on Instagram 🌷

Hope you're having a lovely Summer! The flowers have been slow to bloom this year, so I am happy to have some cross-stitched ones to cheer me up 💐

Scratchin' Eggstravaganza: Easter Egg!

New FREE Pattern - Chicken Scratch Easter Egg!!!

(PDF. Pattern via Dropbox - need Adobe Reader? Get it for free!)

Oh, I'm so excited to share this with you!!! You ever have ideas that don't work out? Most of mine don't, but every now and again they do. Which is great. But you know what's absolutely wonderful?! When they completely exceed your expectations, like this little Easter Egg did! And I had so much fun stitching it up that I had to share :)

Now, I know it's a little late in the game. Easter is only next weekend (?!). I have no idea how that happened, but that's what I realized today. But this project really is super quick to stitch and finish, and can easily be completed in an afternoon or two. It took me three, but I was designing (and re-designing, LOL) as I went along!

The materials - 11 count white Aida, a size 20 tapestry needle and DMC Prism Craft Thread - are the same as I used for my Chicken Scratch Sampler. And the finishing technique - the Chain Stitch and Whip Stitch Edging - and ornament assembly are the same as my Blackwork Poinsettia Christmas Ornament (with photo tutorial).

Along with the patterns for the Front of the Easter Egg - with the Floral Medallion (which I first designed in red as a Poinsettia for family ornaments this Christmas) - and the Back with the "Happy Easter!" greeting - I've included a few photo tutorials for some of the stitches and other information that I hope will be useful :)

Next to the Flower, I'm happiest with my "Egg Stitch" - an elongated version of the traditional Circle Stitch that ended up looking like a nice little row of mini eggs:

As you can see, it follows exactly the same movements as the Circle Stitch, it's the adjustment to the foundation stitches that makes it oval. The completed row is in the middle. I had lots of fun working each one in different colours!

My stitching is a little wonky in the progress pictures because I was working it in hand instead of a hoop. My Aida cloth was a looser weave and the stitches pulled it badly. It's okay though because it all worked out with some gentle stretching and a little rest, and it actually made the woven stitches - like the eggs - so much easier:

As you can see, I could bend the fabric and make the foundation stitches stand off from the fabric a little bit so it was super fast to slip the weaving thread under. So if it happens to you, worry not ;) I hope this Easter Egg will entice you to try Scratchin', and inspire some new variations! Here's a close-up of the edging:

I think I'm getting a little better at this everytime I try it, and it's really fun with the Craft Thread because you don't have to worry about not catching all the strands of floss. I like including a seasonal Sentiment, and it helps me actually final-finish things faster because I'm not waiting to find the perfect backing fabric and trims :)

Speaking of Chicken Scratch, Mary Corbet at Needle N' Thread recently posted her own floral variation on gingham, and may be offering some patterns soon.

And speaking of Easter, Jo at Serendipitious Stitching is having her wonderful Easter Blog Hop again this year! Click this very handsome Mr. Bunny for more info:

I was hoping to sign up to be a Hop Host, but I think I've run out of time for this year. The Chicken Scratch Easter Egg is actually the first thing I've ever stitched for that holiday though, so I'm doing pretty good :) I'm looking forward to Hopping along the Bunny Trail for the Mystery Phrase on Easter! Jo's Hops are always great fun.

While you're visiting, why not congratulate Jo on three great years of blogging and enter to win a fabulous yet-to-be-final-finished Alice in Wonderland gift?!

As for me, I wish you a Wonderful Spring and a Very Happy Easter!

P.S. I'm entering this project at Dream A Little Bigger's Link Party:

P.P.S. I just got the most wonderfully amazing news!! I'm trying to catch up with my blog feed this weekend, and to my absolute astonishment and delight, I discovered my Chicken Scratch Sampler featured on the DMC Threads website!!! *so excited*

The article was published yesterday and features "Creative Samplers" - there are three other beautiful and inspiring projects profiled that are well worth seeing :) 

Here's a little preview:

Thanks very much to Emma for the feature, and to all ES readers! It is so great to see that there is new interest in Chicken Scratch, and I hope it comes back in a BIG way ;)

Chicken Scratch Sampler, On Aida!

NOTE: This post has been updated to include a direct .PDF download link, please see the end of this post more information :)

After I finished stitching my Chicken Scratch Heart a while ago, I knew right away that I wanted to try a little experiment :) As you may remember, I had trouble with the twist that showed in my Circle Stitch with my beloved DMC floss, so I decided to try using a thicker single-ply thread instead and this Sampler was the result!

It was actually super fun to stitch because I didn't plan anything out - I started with a design for the middle row (sketched out on graph paper) and the rest just grew from there!!! And that's a Big Deal for me because it's one thing to do a little Spontaneous Stitching but it's another level *entirely* to do some Spontaneous Designing LOL ;) This could so easily have been a catastrophe, but it wasn't and I actually like it!

Here it is in it's entirety, in my 6" Hoopla. I used the same DMC Prism Craft Thread (colours from the Sweetheart and Rockstar packs) that I had leftover from my Floral Umbrella embroidery, which is comparable in thickness to Pearl (Perle) Cotton #5. Because it's not mercerized, like flower thread, the matte finish and pastel colours give the pattern a sweet vintage feel :) I used a larger Aida than usual - 11 count in White - and a big #20 Tapestry Needle, which worked like a charm!

I've never done big, chunky stitching like this before and I was surprised by how much I enjoyed it :) This was a really quick and easy stitch but the neat unusual stitch combinations kept it interesting for me, and I highly recommend trying this stitching on a larger scale if you're interested in the Chicken Scratch technique! It really lets you see how all the stitches are formed and the thick single-ply thread makes the needleweaving a breeze - the twists don't show and so the stitches look smoother.

Also, it gives the work a fabulous raised texture:

It's really fun to glide your fingertips over the stitching and feel all the differences ;)

Although all the elements were inspired by traditional Chicken Scratch stitches and vintage designs I've seen online, working on Aida meant that I wasn't limited to the checkerboard squares of the gingham fabric that is the basis for this "lace" work:

The heart and flowers in the header row, for example, don't follow the spacing of gingham, but I think they fit in with the rest of the stitches really well! The needlelace filling on the heart came about after a LOT of fiddling around, and it's a little wonky around the edges, but I'm proud of how it turned out :) And speaking of weaving...

...where has the Woven Cross Stitch been all my life?! Those are the little blocks worked in two shades of purple. Serious, this is an absolutely AMAZING and astoundingly simple stitch and I'm just bewildered that it isn't more widely used or known!!! I came across the stitch in this post by Sharon Boggon of Pintangle, as part of her "Take A Stitch Tuesday" (TAST) challenge and I think it has all kinds of possibilities that I can't wait to explore further in the future!

Like these cute little flowers I stitched up on the edge of my sampler, using Woven Cross Stitch, French Knots and Lazy Daisies :) Speaking of Specialty Stitches, I have an embarrassing confession to make - you know those lovely things I've been calling "Algerian Crosses" all this time? Um. They're actually "Smyrna Cross Stitches", as I found out when looking up new-to-me stitches for the Sampler. And the worst thing is that I *know* I knew this at some point, but managed to forget completely LOL!

Honestly, I have no idea how some stitches get named! The Algerian Eyelet is exactly the same stitch in eyelet form so the Algerian Crosses thing always made sense to me. And to make matters even more confusing, in Chicken Scratch they're called Double Cross Stitch and Snowflake Stitches! Argh. Since I've discovered otherwise I can't seem to think of them by their "proper" name but I still like stitching them all the same ;)  In fact I had so much fun Scratchin' that I've already started in on a little bookmark using a variation of the center row:

The only aspect that was a little difficult was the issue of starting and ending threads. It's just not feasible to start and end on every block although I guess it could be done. Instead, I carried threads across rows and borrowed the "travelling" method from embroidery (running threads under the backs of other stitches to reach a new area):

The back does look a little messy, but a lot of that is just the thickness of the thread. Speaking of which, I found it helpful to leave longer tails when starting and ending the thread for darning so that I could weave the tails more firmly back into the work.

I think Chicken Scratch is a really interesting needlework technique that seems to have had limited range historically (aprons and table linens) but that holds a lot of possibility with modern materials like Aida! I included some links to information in my Chicken Scratch Heart post but although I did a lot of searching online for more information I found very little. Unfortunately, it's clearly a craft in decline!

One thing I abhor is seeing craft methods fading away, because once practice stops, that knowledge is often lost forever. Thankfully, this tragedy can easily be prevented with increased awareness! Because of this, I have decided to offer the pattern for my Chicken Scratch Sampler for free, even though the design is very simple.

If you'd like to share this pattern (thank you!), please consider using this graphic:

I've included some more information on the stitches I used and an online Resources list along with the chart, which is a .PDF document. Please e-mail me for a copy (my address is in my sidebar, under the pretty postage stamps), and feel free to share it with others who may be interested :) Hopefully this little Sampler will inspire you to try some Scratchin' of your own, and if you do, I'd love to see it!

UPDATE: Please click here for the direct .PDF download!

After trying a few different methods, I signed up with Dropbox. You should not be required to sign in and should easily be able to save the file to your computer. If you have any problems downloading, please (pretty please!) let me know :) And if you'd rather receive the pattern by e-mail, just send me a message. Thank you!

Have you tried Chicken Scratch? Would you like to?! Any thoughts are appreciated!

Before I go, I'm very excited to announced that I have a Special Surprise in the works for my Door in Jo's Advent Calendar Hop, which starts this Sunday! My day is December 4th, so please make sure to visit on Wednesday for a Holiday treat :)

SECOND UPDATE: I was invited to participate in Allison's great Link Party this week, my very first! Please click on the image below for more information :)

THIRD UPDATE: Allison very kindly featured this project in her Link It or Lump It #16 at Dream A Little Bigger! Please click on the image below for more information :)

SAL: Update & Choosing My Colours!

If you're just learning about the SAL, please visit the announcement post for more information (or click the banner at right >)! You're welcome to join in anytime :)

Sorry I'm accidentally a day behind, LOL! I meant to post yesterday, but time just got away from me. That really goes to show - this is a very relaxed SAL, and you can stitch and post at your own pace :) I'm going to try and put up a progress post at least once a week for the duration, but you can post whenever and however you feel like!

Thank you SO MUCH to everyone who has joined in! Your support and enthusiasm mean so much to me, and I honestly (and obviously, LOL) can't do this without you. As CS mentioned in her post, hosting a SAL has been something I wanted to do even before I started ES, and so in a real way this is a dream come true for me :)

Karen also wrote a wonderful post about the SAL too! Both Karen and CS have been my major cheerleaders behind the scenes on this adventure, and are in effect my co-hosts, or rather my stitchy co-conspirators in crime! If you have any questions or problems though, please direct them to me, okay? That's why ES is on the banner ;)

Currently, we have six stitchers, including myself, who are stitching for sure (I've written these in the order of joining, so I can add new stitchers on the end if needed):

1. Aurelia @ Eglantine Stitchery (me!)
2. CrazyStitcher (CS) @ Crazy Cross-stitcher
3. Karen @ Karen's Colourful Creations
4. Emma @ EveningEmma
5. Jeanne @ Byrd's Nest
6. Erica @ Erica's Stitches

This is amazing, and I'm really looking forward to seeing what you all create!

Over the weekend, I took my time and thought hard about what colourway I wanted to use, but after playing around with a few ideas, I kept coming back to the Original Colourway! This surprised me greatly, since I was fully intending to sparkle it up with some metallics as usual, but I think it will be more serviceable this way.

My poor bookmarks do get a LOT of use, LOL, so they need to be sturdy :)

However, I'm going to try something I have never done and use a pretty pastel Aida for my fabric! I found a lovely and really cute lemony yellow in my stash:

Like most of my coloured Aida, this was inherited from my Stitchy Guru Mother, and the brand - Regency Mills - is one I've worked with before. I really like their fabrics, they came in lovely colours including a very pretty Copenhagen blue, which you can see in this active E-bay listing. Unfortunately, they've been out of business for years.

As you can see, I cut off a little snippet and stitched my first Rhodes Heart! I was anxious to see how the adaptation I had designed for the bookmark pattern would stitch up, and I'm pretty pleased with it :) I used three strands, like I did for my original Spring Garden Square, but two strands would give a finer look!

Proper Rhodes Hearts, from what I can find, usually don't have borders, but the outline fits in with all the other elements really well. I think it adds more shape too!

Here's the little snippet with the skeins from my colourway (the original colours):

That poor little card of dark green isn't very photogenic, LOL, as you can see I'm getting low on the 699 :) I actually almost didn't take the photos because it looks so sad, but hey, partial skeins are a stitchy fact of life right?

This will actually likely be enough to get me through the bookmark, but I'll pick up an extra skein just in case ASAP. I'm hoping to make it to the fabric store sometime this week to pick out my backing fabric! And maybe some ribbon for the marker.

I had a fabric in mind from my stash - a gardening print with little itty bitty gloves, trowels, potted plants and watering cans - but (wouldn't you know it? argh!) almost everything matched except the greens. And I wasn't inclined to stitch teal leaves ;)

While we're talking about project set-up, here's how I keep my working threads:

Fancy, it is not, LOL. But it works. I keep that nice white cardboard from various things (this one is, I must confess, from the box of the most delicious Lindt Lindor chocolate bars, which never touch the food since the bars are wrapped in foil).

I use a hole punch to put in as many "parking spaces" for my thread as I need (and often a few extra) and then use my fine-point Sharpie marker to label the top with the project info and the sides with the thread numbers. I cut off lengths as I need them, and I store the bobbins for the colours I'm using on binder rings until I'm finished with them. Then I put them back in my floss boxes until the next project!

This one is actually from my Spring Garden Square, but since I'm using the same colours I'm not going to bother to make a new one. I'm lazy like that, LOL ;)

Here's another view of it, with all my supplies so far:

The wonderful news is that if this method appeals to you at all, Mollie at the Wild Olive embroidery blog has just offered a free colour printable of the cutest Thread Organizers ever! They're shaped like floss bobbins with Mollie's trademark smiley faces, and happen to match her free printable floss bobbins from a while back!

If I had coloured ink right now, I'd totally have these printed off :) While not really practical for large projects, they're a really cute way to perk up small little stitching projects like the SAL bookmark! There's also some cute lovebirds and a kitty cat in this set of printables. If nothing else, they'd be a great conversation starter.

While looking around online, I found some other interesting bobbins: meant for the fridge, these clever magnetic floss bobbins would work wonderfully with magnetic pattern boards. And with this tutorial, you can make your own fancy bobbins out of scrapbook paper! These Flossy wooden animals sold at Etsy are super cute too :)

And since we're on the topic, this is a simple but genius way to label plastic thread bobbins (or even cardboard ones really), and this is a great tip about cutting a plastic drinking straw as protection for the sharp edges of plastic bobbins. I have a set of them that I was given as a gift, but the edges were very sharp and so I haven't used them much. I don't think it's great for long-term storage, but it might work in a pinch!

But enough about bobbins :) Here's some REALLY interesting news that I should've saved for the next Stitchy News but just couldn't wait to share: Over the last several months Sublime Stitching, the embroidery company run by Jenny Hart, has released several interesting floss collections, including colour-blended "Mingles" and a truly neon Glow-in-Darks. And now SS has just introduced Reflective Thread!!!

This was pretty much my reaction, LOL: Ooh -

There's also an interesting blog post on how to use it. The post states that "it's the stuff that glows like crazy in the dark when light hits it", like safety patches on clothing, and it will require special care to use. But how neat is that?! It's only in silver right now, but wouldn't it be great if there were different colours available?

Unfortunately, I'm not likely to get my claws into any Reflective Thread soon, but I do think it's such a neat idea. So that's my exciting news for today :) I'm hoping that The Great Fabric Search will commence tomorrow, I'll let you know how it goes!

A New Rustic Ornament! And It's Free!

Back before the big Christmas Giveaway excitement, I posted about some unfinished ornaments I had stitched a few years ago, and also about my re-doing of one of them. When I had originally stitched both ornaments, I was so pleased with them that I drew up some co-ordinating patterns in the same style, that I call "rustic", intending to make a whole series! I rediscovered those drawings recently, and still liked one of them enough to sit down and try to stitch the design. And this is the end result :)

While the two original designs were meant to be finished as square "package trim" tree ornaments, I put on my Funky Finishing Fedora and decided that I'd like make a small wall-hanging, a three-panel triptych with "Peace" on the left, "Tis The Season" in the middle, and "Joy" on the right. Originally, I had designed the pattern text to say "Noel", but reconsidered before I started to stitch. I chose "Peace" because Christmas is often said to be the Season of Peace and Joy, and because the image of a lighted candle always brings peace of the spirit and hope for the future to my mind.

After some consideration, I have decided to post up the pattern to share! This is the first time I've ever done anything like this, and I was initially very reluctant to do so, given my inexperience with graphing virtually. When I design for myself, or adjust designs to suit my needs, I do it by hand on blank graph paper.

However, I was recently inspired to download the trial version of PC Stitch Pro 9 (the newest edition), following CrazyStitcher's very helpful and thorough review of the StitchCraft software. My Stitchy Guru Mother used to have the 4th edition, and I had used that to do up the first version of this design many years ago. I was very curious to see how the new features work. Although the demo does not allow you to save your design, I took a screenshot and used it for my graph. However, I had a lot of trouble generating a legend so I made my own. I need to play around with the software a bit more before I can give a review, so look for it in the near future!

Beside working as an example of the PC Stitch graphing software, I thought this might also be a good example of how you can take inspiration from an existing cross-stitch pattern or series of patterns and then design coordinating works for yourself. Although I echoed the originals stylistically, I designed the motifs and lettering. Part of the reason that Tis The Season and Joy have be left unfinished for so long is that I always knew that they needed an extra little something.

While similar in style - the checkerboards, the patchwork elements, the lettering - the pair just didn't feel like a "set". I learned a long time ago in art class that if you put two of anything together, the eye will always be drawn to the small differences between them, resulting in a feeling of tension and discord. However, if you balance the two elements with a third, the similarities will become more apparent and they will "match" harmoniously. With the addition of Peace, this project finally feels just right to me, and the message I wanted them to convey finally feels complete ;)

Here is the pattern, in .jpeg image format. It's designed to fit on one piece of paper:

For some reason, the text looks a little bit blurry here, I think because it's been downsized to fit the post. I've also made this image publicly available in a special Picasa Web Album, so if you have trouble downloading this image please try for the larger size available there. If neither method works (!), then please don't hesitate to e-mail me and I'll send it directly. My address is at the top of my sidebar.

Please note that this design is for personal use only. If you like it, I'd love if you shared it, but please put up a link to this post rather than reposting the pattern on your own site. And if you do stitch it, I'd greatly appreciate it if you'd let me know :)

Like the two patterns that inspired this design, Peace is a simple and quick stitch. The limited colour palette means that you can make colour substitutions very easily, and I encourage you to do so. I stitched mine to match the others, on 14 count Charles Craft Aida in "Oatmeal", a light fabric with darker fibres woven in. I choose this originally, over the beige suggested, to enchance the rustic look.

As you can see, I repeated the checkerboard motif, but in red and green. Although it looks darker in the photograph, my stitching uses the original colour from the other patterns, which is actually a dark coral, but Christmas Red will give you a similiar - and more seasonal - look. I also used one strand of white pearl cottton #8 for the candle, since I had substituted it for the white in the other designs. The backstitching is all done in my all-time favourite, 3371, which I substituted in Tis The Season and Joy for the grays and beiges suggested. The lighter blue on the patchworked glass ball ornament is not backstitched, as it's meant to suggest shine and roundness.

Once again, my buttons came to me serendipitously! I didn't sit down and choose them when I designed the colours, preferring to stitch it first, like I did with Tis The Season and Joy. And I'm really pleased with the way this button trio turned out - I went for colour and texture this time, which is a little bright but I think fits well with the spirit of the design. The light blue and yellow buttons are odd ones from my Great-Grandmother's trusty button tin, and the coral one was part of a four-piece set from my Mother's button collection. Usually I don't like to break up sets, but the colour was so spot on that I made an allowance! All three are plastic.

And as the final step in The Rustic Ornament saga, I decided to fix something that's been bothering me a long time. You may have noticed on Tis The Season that the pearly white button was square and had four holes unlike the rest of the buttons which were round and had two holes. So after some furious rummaging, The Stitchy Karma Gods and The Button Box Karma Gods again brought me just what I needed :)

Here is Tis The Season before:

And here it is in all its new finery:

The yellow button had to go, because it was too light when put against the floss used in the other two designs. The new green and white pearl buttons are both odd ones. The coral one, the only button I kept, was originally from my Grandmother's button basket, as is the new green one. I love how both of them shift from the light to dark colours, echoing the floss perfectly! It turned out that we had plenty of white pearly buttons, but only this one happened to have the same shape and finish, and it's an odd one from my own button tins. So, there are buttons from four generations spread out across these three works, which I think is really neat ;)

This is the placement I'm thinking of, with holiday fabric between and surrounding the squares. My finishing idea is a little ambitious, but I'm looking forward to uniting these three designs and being able to display them - finally, after so many years! - together this Christmas holiday. And I sincerely hope that Peace will be a welcome addition to your own festive decor this year, should you choose to stitch it :)