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Friday 28 June 2019

Friday Finds: DMC Skin Colours

Ohk we all know that feeling when you see a pattern and it's perfect except for one little thing. The colours.

When I was designing my latest pattern The Squat Girl I asked for some feedback from some of my friends and one suggestion was skin colours. But even better than that the suggestion was followed by this link. 

How did I not know this was a thing? But if you ever want to change the skin colour of any design that you have now use the link above and it gives you the main skin colour and options for highlights and shadows that go with the colour. This starts at fair and goes through to dark tones using DMC colours. He also has one for Anchor colours that can be found here.

So next time you're wondering what skin colour to use there are many options and I'm so excited to use this more in my designs because it is hard to know what colour to use with my software as it doesn't represent colours properly.


Happy Stitching,
Caitlin

Friday 21 June 2019

Collection of Freebies - Cross stitch

With the release of my new pattern I wanted to remind everyone that I have a few free simple patterns available as well. It's been a while since I last designed a lot but I've started getting back into it and I'm going to be releasing a lot more in the coming months so keep your eyes out. But onto the freebies!

Birthday Cake

To start with I designed this awesome little cake for my birthday about 4 years ago now.


You can find the free pattern for it here

If you like the little banner below the cake it's actually a set of banners I sell that can be added to all kinds of cross stitch projects.

Ghost

 Also another year for my birthday and since I had released my witch pattern just weeks before I had this little freebie of a ghost available as a companion to it. You can find the ghost pattern here and both of these patterns would look cute stitched up on pillows decorating your house for Halloween. You have plenty of time to work on them before October!



Crochet Mug Cosy 

If Cross Stitch isn't really your thing I do have this pattern for a crochet mug cosy that I designed as Christmas gifts one year. They were a big hit and really quick to stitch up. This was a while ago now but that owl mug is still going strong! I even linked this project to Ravelry so if you use that to keep track of your crochet/knitting projects and ideas you can find it there.


Knitted Beanie and Glove Set

I made this knitted beanie and glove set for my kids and I just winged my way through a pattern. So I figured since I worked out how to do this I would share the basic idea of how to do it yourself. You can find it on Ravelry here :D 


 They're really comfy to wear particularly being knitted rib and I should make more of them as they are SOOO quick to knit. Chunky needles anyone?


 Fabric Book Covers

 For those moments that you want to use your little cross stitches in something but don't know what? Well this might be the way to go.  You can find a full tutorial here on how I made these and instructions on how to make them for yourself. If you like the little kangaroo pattern it's another one of mine and you can find it here.

  













I'm realising now as I'm going through my archives that I have a lot more freebies/tutorials than I realised. I have been doing this blog for 8 years and although I haven't always been really consistent about posting I do like to share my knowledge and love of crafts with you. I am sure I have missed some as I wasn't always consistent with my labelling so it's kinda hard to find some of them. That's one thing I need to go and fix up.

Hope you enjoy all these projects whether you remember me posting them back in the day or they are entirely new to you. Do you remember these projects? Or are these all new to you?

Happy Stitching, 
Caitlin

Saturday 15 June 2019

Squat Girl - A New Pattern



 Squat Girl Pattern - Available Here

It has been way too long since I've had the opportunity to write this! With everything going on I have been struggling to find the creative drive and also in knowing what direction I want to take my patterns. I was feeling a little stale as it seemed that all I was doing were the same tiny characters in varying forms. But I was drawing a pile of different characters and really getting into a cartoon style of drawing. So I started thinking more and more. Well why can't I turn my drawings into patterns? When I asked myself that question things started to make a LOT more sense and I started the process. Of course it was slowed by uni getting in the way but last week I with the help of my new toy (a windows surface laptop thingy) I got in and did it! So much quicker to work with a pen not a mouse.

So what does that whole diatribe mean? it means that you get the lucky privilege of a new pattern! I started with my squat girl. This started as a little character I drew while on the phone at work, then I uploaded it onto my phone and digitally altered it. It was so fun and I loved the character so much I actually am using it as my avatar for instagram now. But I knew I couldn't stop there and I pulled it into my cross stitch program and now have an awesome pattern to offer you.


It went through a lot of changes particularly when going from paper to digital. Also unlike most of my other patterns this one is very big on the back stitching. Actually it's the backstitching that really brings it together. I tried to do my usual style with a thick outline and it just looked wrong. So back to the drawing board I went and got rid of the outline and it looked so much better. Unfortunately this does mean it is no longer what I would term a 'beginner' pattern but it's only 9 colours so definitely not hard.

If you feel confident I would recommend using evenweave as the backstitching does sit in the middle of a lot of squares in order to get the detail needed. As I said it's very different from my typical design but I absolutely LOVE how it turned out!


Find the new pattern here

I hope you enjoy this awesome pattern.

Happy Stitching,

Caitlin

Friday 7 June 2019

Friday Finds: upcycled thrift store find


I'm not usually an advocate of touching someone else's work but this is fantastic! It was obviously well loved once and then got passed on and now it is getting actually used. I also love the glow in the dark element :D

Who doesn't want to see their work actually being enjoyed?

What do you think of this? Would you do this yourself? Do you like the original or the changed version?

I like both but I really like what he has done with the jacket, it's now wearable art. Also this was sitting in a thrift store so to me it's fair game.

Happy Stitching,
Caitlin
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