Stitch a Sweet Planter Made from a Tin Can

I love a good upcycling project, and using tin cans as planters or to organize things on a desk is a great way to reuse them and gives you a little canvas to be creative on as well.

Julie from Sum of their Stories used an old instant coffee tin, took off the label, stitched up some cute flowers and attached the cross stitch to the tin, then used it as a planter. It’s really cute but I’m not sure I would trust a tin to be a good planter (she suggests making sure you use ones that are water-tight or using a liner inside, but I would think having drainage would be important) but she’s made a few so I guess they work fine.

This idea would also be cute for a pencil cup on a desk, to store paint brushes in your child’s art area, even to hold utensils in the kitchen. It’s an easy way to add a bit of cuteness to a standard upcycle.

What do you think? What would you use this project for? I’d love to hear your thoughts!

[Photo via Sum of their Stories.]

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35+ Sunflower Cross Stitch Patterns

I have not done a lot of big cross stitch projects, but sometimes even with small projects it can be hard to decide exactly where to begin and how to work through the chart if you’re working with multiple colors. The general categories for the possible methods are known as cross country and parking.

Cross country means that you’re working one color at a time, moving around the chart (or the section of the chart you’re working on) until you’re done with that color. Parking means you’re working in a smaller section and doing all the colors in that area, “parking” the threads by leaving them attached to the canvas but out of the way while you finish each section.

Royal Rows is a specific way of parking named by Alison Royal, which is explored in detail on a post on Stitching Daily.

The idea is that you’re working one “tower” of stitches at a time (she uses a section of 10 stitches across by 20 down, but you can do whatever makes sense to you). You work all the stitches of a color at a time, starting at the top left and working your way down. When you’re done with a color you can park it where needed in the section below your current tower (known as the dungeon) or in the “east tower,” which is the section to the right.

There’s also a specific way of dealing with thread ends when you’re done with a color. This is a super simplified version (head to the blog post at Stitching Daily to get all the details) but the basic idea is that you’re working from left to right and top to bottom across the work, parking the threads in the next section when you’re done with them and systematically choosing which color to work with next.

The whole idea of parking is kind of overwhelming to me though I will admit that it makes a lot of sense. I guess I need to try it on a smallish big project and see how it goes. Do you use the parking method of cross stitch? I’d love to hear about it!

[Photo via Stitching Daily]

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