Making the Seasons :: June

As you have no doubt gathered by now I absolutely love having fresh flowers in the house and always try to have a jug of something pretty and floral on my dining table. Mostly the flowers I have indoors are cheap and cheerful seasonal market flowers, but at this time of year I prefer to have small home-grown posies in a jug, or even just a few tiny stems in an old glass ink bottle. Being able to go into my back yard and snip blooms to bring to the table is one of my all time favourite pleasures, gosh it makes me almost delirious with happiness to be able to do this simple thing.

This past week I've been enjoying a beautiful bunch of flowers bought very cheaply from the supermarket, although these aren't your typical supermarket offerings. I was thrilled (like almost peeing my pants excited) when I spotted a bucket of flower bunches labelled "Summer Growers Choice", or something like that (I knew I should have written it down, I just can't remember if these were the exact words, but you get the drift I hope?!). Each bunch was slightly different and contained a mixture of single stems, a real English cottage-style mixture which made me giddy with delight. I mean, just LOOOK at that delicious stem of pink snapdragons, isn't it ravishing?!!! 

But it was the daisy-like stems of Feverfew which really captured my heart. My Mum used to grow these all over the place, in the garden and at her allotment plot and I loved that she would have them in her cottage, spilling out of jugs and vases. Some people think that Feverfew is a weed as it freely self seeds and grows in the most unlikely of places. But it's actually a herb and has medicinal properties, although neither of those things matter much to me to be honest. Weed or herb, I don't particularly mind, I just love the old fashioned simplicity of this flower and the fact that it reminds me of Dorset and childhood.

Last week I'd been pondering on what I might like to make for the June edition of Making the Seasons, and knew it had to be something floral. Summer months are just overwhelmingly flowery in my mind, they really are. Inspired by the flowers on my table, I thought I might like to try stitching some daisies. Not just any old stitching, but that irresistible placement of weeny little crosses that has me so in it's grips at the moment.

I wanted my cross stitch to be small and simple - 2 shades of green, plus white and yellow.

A little square of pale grey 14 count aida and a dinky little 3 inch embroidery hoop.

Creating a design for such a small hoop is harder than it seems, and it feels like every single cross has to be very carefully considered and placed. However, I happen to LOVE this kind of design challenge and it didn't take me all that long to create a daisy design on my laptop that pleased me.

So do you see my lovely printed cross stitch chart??? I made that chart All By Myself!!!!!!!! Yes, I did indeed!!!! Well, with  a little bit of help from my other half. 

You see, my very, very, very talented and clever husbundo can write computer programs to do pretty much anything that tickles your fancy. So a few months ago when I casually told him that I might like to have a go at designing some cross stitch patterns, he offered to whip me up an app for my laptop. See how casual I made that sound?! In truth it took us a couple weeks to work on it together, and through trial and error with me figuring out what I needed as we went along we came up with a really fantastic and very workable cross stitch design app for me to play with.

I can select my thread colours to create a colour palette on my screen, then I'm able to click away on the little grid to fill each square with colour. It's soooooooo good!! 

Once I had my chart printed out I couldn't wait to get started on the stitching. As you can see, this is cross stitch on a very small scale so it didn't take long at all to stitch the stem and leaves.....

....and then start work on the flowers. As I stitched, I realised that I wanted to change one of the flowers (the little one on the right in the above photo, as it has no yellow centre showing and looked a bit forlorn). So I took my very sharp little scissors and hacked out the flower stitches completely (far harder to remove crosses than it is to frog crochet let me tell you), then went back to my computer, altered the chart and re-stitched...

.....ahhhhh, that's better!! So so so sweet!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

I can't tell you how proud I am of this dinky little design, it just pleases me so so much!

J's app also allows me to save these nifty stitch charts to my computer, so that I can then share them here on my blog if I want to.

I don't know if anyone is remotely interested in stitching themselves a tiny little daisy cross stitch, but if the idea grabs you then please feel free to use my chart :) If you want to print it out, you'll need to right click on the image, select copy image, then paste it into a word document to print.

You need 2 shades of green, plus white and a rich mustardy yellow. I used 3 strands of DMC embroidery thread when I made my cross stitches. And 14 count aida fabric, but I think I already said that.

The actual design (stitched on Aida 14) measures 5cm / 2 inches square. Find the centre of your fabric and start stitching from the centre of the design (which is marked on the chart). I think that's about it - cross stitch is pretty straight forward really.

This whole thing has been beyond exciting for me, and has opened up a delicious new part of my very greedy Creative Mind which is always on the look out for new things. Oh, the possibilities!!

Endless, exciting, thrilling possibilities for creating pretty seasonal designs to stitch with joy.

I can hardly contain myself.

The small scale of this 3 inch hoop is just delightful, and I really want to make more. More and more and more. For Summer, for Autumn, for every season throughout the year and everything nature inspired that makes me happy. I am thinking of little cross stitch strawberries now, or maybe some wispy summer grasses.........oh my heart!

I've popped my hoop on my mantel along with the feverfew daisies which found their way into my old glass ink bottle. I might eventually create a little bit of a display on the wall somewhere, if the stitched hoops start to grow and multiply and happen to become a collection.

So that's June for you, all joyful and stitchy and making my summer loving heart sing. I'm already wondering what July might be about, I never quite know what little seasonal thing will take a hold of my heart and bring forth a surge of creative inspiration. 

I hope you enjoy sharing in my seasonal inspirations and creative makes - you can find all previous months tagged in the {Making the Seasons} category. I love sharing my monthly making adventure with my bloggy friend Gillian - I've not seen her June project yet but I do know what it is and I am squeeeeeing with excitement waiting for her big reveal. We chat back and forth about our ideas and thoughts for each month, and it amazes me how different our individual styles are, but how similar our projects often turn out to be. This month we are especially in tune with each other......do go and see over on her blog Tales from a Happy House.

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Comments

[Mitzi]

This is lovely Lucy and so handy that J can make you an app to design your own cross stitches. Is there no end to one women's talents.

Mitzi

[Cynthia Jones]

This is so sweet!! I love to stitch small gifts for my Sunday school girls. This is perfect. I'm so happy you've taken an interest in cross stitch and are using your talents to design. Thank you for offering the free chart.

[Trudi Partridge]

How sweet is that. My mum was throwing out a pile of wooden embroidery hoops, now I know what to fill them with! I'm loving the idea of strawberries, the funny little wild ones. Somewhere I have an embroidery pattern with strawberries on, perhaps I could try and adapt it. That's my afternoon sorted!

[Little Quiltsong]

Thank you Lucy - this Daisy cross-stitch is adorable! Cross-stitch is something I love to do - and can do :)! Knitting and crocheting is something I still need to learn. Such pretty flowers you bought. Always enjoy your posts - they just lift the heart!

[Heaher]

Thank you for chart and your lovely summery photos. There is a cross stitch chart in this month's Cross Stitcher which should appeal to you with the words Do More OF What You Love with a floral design.

[Esther Albors]

Thanks, Lucy for this subtle and lovely chart.

[Gail]

Absolutely brilliant. What a clever pair you both are. Yes I would love to stitch this, even though we’re in the middle of winter down under. Thank you so much. Blessings Gail.

[curvywitch]

An app that actually does something useful! Good on J and you - a fabulous creative partnership project. I do hope he'd thinking of marketing it for the rest of us crafters ;-). My husband writes programmes so I know just how much time and effort goes into this sort of work. Brilliant.

[Pam]

I haven’t done any cross stitch or embroidery of any kind for years - I found the cost of having them mounted was prohibitive. But I do enjoy knitting and crochet, especially blankets. At the moment I am picking loads of Sweet Peas from my garden and have bunches around the house, especially in a blue jug that was my Mums that I remember from my childhood. By the way I live a bit further round Lyme Bay from your childhood home, in a seaside town at the western end of the Jurassic coast.

[jacqui]

oh I just love this must try some cross stitching.

[shoshana]

perfect! simple and beautiful. thank you. maybe you would like to share that app that you have created?
thanks again,
shoshana

[Annette]

I've been waiting for this to happen. And lucky you having a hubby who can just "whip up" an app for you to play around with. This is so cute!!! I see many more designs of cross stitch coming up here on your blog for the future. Enjoy the play!

Xxx
Annette

[Jane Mc Lellan]

Love, love, love your little daisy. How clever to be able to draw your own pattern. Thanks for sharing it.

[Sandra]

So pretty in cross-stitch! I used to love doing cross-stitch, but now crochet has taken over!

[Line]

Thanks for sharing the pattern. It's lovely and I do feel like trying.

[Teresa Kasner]

Lucy.. bravo! Designing your own cross-stitch is fabulous and having J create a computer program to produce the patterns is so cool.. what a team you make! I love how it turned out. I used to have feverfew but no longer do.. I wonder how that happened. I might just have to get some from the garden store! ((hugs)), Teresa :-)

[Anna]

By golly Lucy, that app sounds fabulous! Might I endulge your creative mind with a mix of your two favourite yarny handcrafts? Have you ever considered doing a CAL with double crochet (UK) and cross stitches? A couple of years ago the Hygge shawl was a big hit. I'm sure your CAL would be even more glorious in all its fabulous Lucy-ness!

[Margaret]

Such a cute little flower.
Lucy, when stitching, try using three strands instead of two. I find it gives much better coverage and no background fabric peeks through.

[Paula]

Just seeing your site makes me smile. I, too, love bright colors and it just doesn't seem to be the 'in' thing. Thanks for everything you share.

[Shasta]

These daisies/feverfew are adorable, both the actual flowers and the cross stitch. Thanks for the pattern!

[Lenore]

Thank you so much Lucy for sharing the design. It so cute I will have to make one. X

[Jo]

Oooo I love daisies and I love this!! Thank you for sharing! An inspiration as usual...and what a handy hubby, I can see endless possibilities cant you!

[CJ]

It's absolutely lovely Lucy. I like doing cross stitch, but I may have mentioned before, I've discovered I can't really see the fabric well enough at the moment. Eek! May be time for glasses. Sigh. I'm already short-sighted as it is. I have a feeling your cross stitching may be the start of something... The app your husband created sounds brilliant. I look forward to seeing what's next! CJ xx

[Grace Patane]

Lovely stitching project!
Thank You for sharing your chart!

[Jacquie]

Yes, yes, yes. I new you would be brilliant at this Lucy. How satisfying to create your own designs . I look forward to seeing what else you create.
Jacquie xxx