Tag Archives: Cross-stitch

This cross-stitch design I worked as a teenager was part of a Danish calendar, there was a different design to stitch for each month and all were inspired by a natural seasonal feature of that month in some way.  Mum and Dad have it hanging in their house because it matches the other five or so that Mum worked (hehe, in my teenage self-centredness I thought I was being pretty awesome doing my one…!).  I took this picture while I was there last weekend…  This autumn one was immediately my favourite on first perusing the booklet, the warm rich earthy colours, the silvery raindrops, all spoke to me back then of the sort of colourful and misty autumn that was unknown but known to me, that I had read about in English storybooks.  The other designs were all similarly European; involving crocuses in May, thrushes, rooks, robin-redbreasts and snow at Christmas and other scenes that Australians often do feel a strange affinity for, but are actually foreign to us.  
The raindrops and the inner border are worked in a metallic silver thread that I can still remember was a nightmare to use…  Although some of the rain-drops top right look gold they really are silver, using a different type of thread from the others, which has unfortunately tarnished a little  🙁

These are some cushions I embroidered with my parents’ initials a few years ago (hehe, when I was into cross-stitch a while back…)  and sewed up the cushion covers with some gathered broderie anglaise edging.  I think on the backs I sewed proper little fold-over closures with buttonholes and cute pearly buttons; but I forgot to turn over the cushions when I was taking this photo to refresh my memory…  Mum and Dad pay me the honour of having them permanently sitting on their bed, and I love the all-white embroidered and belgian lace bedlinen they have here… but then the all-white look is my favourite decorating style.  As well as in clothing… but I’m told white doesn’t suit me so I shouldn’t wear it so much.  Apparently I should stick to ivory or beige.

On my walk this morning; below, the first signs of spring?  Seems incredible but there it is.
Truthfully I am sick of winter.  More accurately, I’m sick of the cold, we are still so desperate for rain.  My friend J was telling me how they may turn their sheep loose into the crops because the growth has been so pathetic they may as well utilise it for sheep feed… a bad situation.  She’s measured that they’ve had all of 127mm of rain this winter (non-metric people, that’s about 5 inches) and everything is as dry as a bone, keeping fingers crossed for a wetter spring…

Flash-back about seven years: we picked this chair up at Melville Markets (a local carboot sale) for $5; it was pretty rickety because it was missing its front foot-strut.  My clever husband whipped up a new one the same afternoon and we had a nice new chair for our entrance hall!
I had a piece of foam cut to fit its seat and covered it with fabric from the remnant bin in Laura Ashley, and added piping I made from some leftover raspberry pink Indian cotton I had used for curtains in our previous house.  I think from memory the piping cord I used for inside the piping is actually rough old rope I found in the shed, rather than the proper nice white cord you can buy in upholstery stores… yeah (shamefaced), I’m of the waste-not-want-not kind…  
The cushion has little self fabric tabs with velcro sewn on, inserted in the back seams to loop around the back rest struts.  This stops it from sliding off and across the hallway if a pussycat happens to do a flying leap up onto the chair…
The embroidery in the other cushion was a little kit I picked up on a craft store exploration excursion I went on with my sister-in-law S one day, this was back in the dark ages when I was into cross-stitch!  I know it’s not centred very well in the cushion, but meh…  The fabric for the main of the cushion is the same raspberry pink curtain fabric as the piping…
I often wonder if those raspberry pink curtains are still up in our old house.