My first finishes of 2010.

Hi everyone, I hope you all had a lovely New Year and are enjoying 2010 so far!

I have not been doing much stitching in the first two weeks of January as I have been quite busy doing other things, but I did manage to put the finishing touches to this box and contents that I started in Nov/December last year.

I designed the needlebook, (pattern now available here) , square cross stitched pillow, the felt pillow and the bottle cap pincushion myself, the round rose embroidered tuffett was not my own design as I have seen many examples of this design on other blogs. I made the pins using Swarovski Crystals and the box was a modified design of a tutorial I found on another blog, the tutorials and more photo's are available in this post below.

Stitching news

I have set up a blog called lynnscrossstitchtutorials here , I have been asked quite a few times how I have completed my cross stitch projects so I thought I would put all of my tutorials in one place.

My first giveaway of 2010

I am currently planning and stitching my first giveaway for 2010, it will be published on the 25 January. I know that sounds very specific but I will be taking part in the One World One Heart giveaway that starts on that date, if you wish to take part in the One World One Heart event all you have to do is sign up on the 25th January and promise to give away a prize to one winner in your own blog draw.

I am looking forward to seeing my old friends visiting and hoping to see some new friends too, so don't forget pop back and see me on the 25th, if you like what I have stitched then leave a comment and you could be a winner!

I am also currently planning and stitching my first 2010 personal exchange that will be sent at the end of January, obviously I cannot show pictures yet, but I am really looking forward to sending it, I will show pictures once my exchange partner receives it.

  

Collage in my last post

I have been asked a couple of times how I created the collage in the last post - I downloaded Picasa 3 from the internet, it is a free photo editing design that allows you to create collages.

The cording was handmade out of DMC thread using a small drill.

I used four pieces of dmc thread and twisted it with the drill until it was really tight and then started to kink, when that happens fold the twisted threads in half and all of the threads will coil around each other and make this matching cording for all of your projects.

Edited: You can now see a tutorial for making hand made cord on my finishing blog here 

Instructions and patterns

The box was made following basic box instructions, you can see my tutorial on my finishing blog here although I did change the design by altering the top and adding a drawer.  

The Needlebook 

The pattern for the needle book is available here

The bottle cap pin cushion 

I found this lovely tutorial showing how to make these cute pincushions here  by Jen Segrest, she has also  published some of her pincushions  in the book Pretty Little Pincushions, I bought the book after seeing her tutorial for the bottle cap cushion, it really is worth buying as there are some lovely ideas in there. 

The Pins Pillow pincushion is my own design, I have put the pattern instructions together to make the larger pillow measuring about 10cm x 7cm. If you would like a copy of the pattern ( excluding materials ) just leave me a comment with your email address and I will happily send it to you. 

Thankyou for leaving such lovely comments in my last post, I enjoyed reading them all.

Happy stitching everyone!