This is my latest finish. I took part in the embroidery challenge (redwork) on stitchers showcase and decided to make it into a cushion. The pattern in free to downlown at the Bustle and Sew blog
here who also have other lovely patterns both free and to purchase.
I found a piece of cream fabric in my stash and pinning the pattern underneath, traced the design onto my fabric, with a water soluble pen, using a lightbox. I only have a small lightbox, originally bought for paper crafting, but it did the job.
I used DMC 498 stranded cotton to work the design in stem stitch and after washing to remove the pen marks, trimmed it to the required size with a rotary cutter.
I have a lot of small fabric scraps leftover from other projects so after working out the size to fit around the front panel, making sure they lined up at the edges, made patchwork strips and sewed them to all four sides.
After that I made some matching binding, a back panel with three buttonholes and put the whole lot together. This was my first time trying redwork and I am glad I took part in the challenge as I have something very different from my usual makes and have extended my stitching repertoire at the same time.
Happy stitching,
What a lovely day today, the sun is shining, the weather is mild and we have had the back door open so the boys can run in and out. Perhaps spring is finally on the way.
It took me a while to get to the needlework shop to buy the thread for my sunflowers so in the meantime I worked some small kits that have been in my stash for years. The Easter bunnies and the flowers I have made into cards. The flower basket, a kit from Needlecraft magazine, is the first embroidery I have done this year. I don't know what I will do with it yet.
I have also made two bookmarks. The sampler style one I will keep for myself and the redwork one I am going to pop into a birthday card as a gift.
The book it is resting on is my latest read, The Snowman by Jo Nesbo - a thriller set during a snowy Norwegian winter. A read page turner with two twists in the tail. 
Here are my sunflowers, finally finished:
Couldn't resist this bargain from Craft Superstore this week. A cabinet and craft goodies with a retail value of 100 GB pounds for just 25 GB pounds. Too good a bargain to pass up. I have already started using the cabinet to hold some of my fabric stash of which I have loads.
Here are a couple of cards I have made from my papercrafts stash. A card for a pony mad niece and a personalised card for John's brother in Australia.
