Charts, patterns and everything needlepoint
Craft with Cartwright has a collection of 40 summer cross stitch motifs that you can grab for free by signing up for updates on her site.
There are all sorts of cute designs, from fruit to boats, ice cream treats, cars pulling trailers and more.
Use them for greeting cards, as the border on a larger design, or stitch the whole thing as a sampler.
[Photo: Craft with Cartwright.]
The cross stitcher behind the blog Sirious Stitches is quite into biscornu.
If you’re not, a quick primer: biscornu are three-dimensional cross-stitched objects with eight points, often with an indention in the middle that makes them look a bit like doughnuts without the hole. They can be just about any size and subject you can think of. They’re often used as pincushions but can also be seasonal decor or just decoration for any time of year.
I’ve got a collection of biscornu cross stitch patterns here.
Once you’ve stitched one or several (they are a little addicting) you might wonder what you can add to them to make them even more extra.
It very much depends on the design of your biscornu and the look you are going for, but Sirious Stitches has a great post all about some of the options you might consider.
I don’t want to give you the whole list because you need to go visit and see all of their great biscornu they’ve stitched, but one really easy thing that you can do with a lot of designs is take advantage of that center indent by adding a button, beads, silk flower or another embellishment.
This is great to do just with a basic button from your stash that coordinates with the design and colors of the cross stitching, but it’s extra fun if you have a button that’s on theme, such as a leaf for a fall biscornu or a flower shaped button for a floral design. Add a jingle bell to a Christmas pattern, or a charm if you don’t have a button that coordinates.
Just this one idea is sure to get you thinking about ways to embellish biscornu (not to mention other cross stitch projects) but head over to Sirious Stitches to see all of their ideas for embellishing biscornu to make these already fun projects even more fun.
Have you ever made biscornu? I’d love to hear about it!
[Photo: Sirious Stitches]
Thanks for sharing my designs