Things my grandmothers stitched for me

I was planning to do this blogpost for a while, but all the stuff that I want to show in this blogpost was at my parents house. Both my maternal and paternal grandmothers were avid stitchers. They both stitched me stuff that I hold dear to my heart and are examples of great craftmanship.

First, lets start with my maternal grandmother. I don't really remember her stitching, because she was already pretty ill by the time I started remembering stuff.

This is the border of a baby blanket my grandmother stitched for me. I think it is a really cute and bright pattern for a little baby girl, so I really liked seeing it again. 

She also stitched me a growth chart, that hung on my wall. My mom told me, that after she had changed my diaper, she always sung a song with me she made up herself about all the characters on the chart. She still remembers it, and it is pretty cute! 

It was pretty hard to photograph this properly because of the elongated size, but hopefully you can see the full effect. 

My other grandmother was probably an even more avid cross stitcher. In the year I was born, she also had two other grandchildren, and they all received a stitched work about the same size. So imagine working on three pieces this size, in a year! I do remember her cross-stitching, because my final cousin was born when I was 12, and she wanted to stitch him something as well, and she did, even though it became harder when she got older. 

This piece is very neat, with very even stitches. I really like the pattern as well, and my mom said it matched my nursery quite well. The funny thing is, when I tried to look for patterns to stitch a few years ago, I stumbled upon this pattern as well. So it is still sold (or at least was until recently) and probably stitched too. 

My mother has never really been into cross stitching, but she did sew me a doll when she was pregnant with me, that has cross stitched features. I wanted to photograph that one too, but I forgot, so maybe next time. 

I really like looking at these pieces, and seeing I really inherited the stitching bug from my grandmothers. In Holland, cross stitching nowadays is more of an old ladies thing, while I think it can be very fun, relaxing and it gives a great result, and it is a nice old craft that has been done for years. I like that I following in the footsteps of my both grandmothers, and hope to stitch for my grandchildren, one day!

WIP Wednesday #4

This week I got a lot of stitching done. I am actually quite happy with myself! The cat is really coming to life now, next to a face last week, I actually can see the start of a paw and tail, its entire chest and quite a lot of back. This part is pretty fast to stitch, because it consists of bigger surfaces of one color, so that's nice.

With the cat going really fast now, I did decide I needed to do some more backstitching, so I got some done last light. I still find it an annoying job to do, but what needs to get done. I hope I will finish the cat and the backstitching around the same time, so I can start on backstitching the cat. But that will not happen by next week.

I ordered some yarn to start on two small projects, but I still need to order a few more colors. So maybe I can show you the start of a new project next week. I also tried to crochet a bit, but I wasn't satisfied with the results so I frogged it.

What I bought at the KreaDoe

Last Wednesday, I went to the KreaDoe fair in Utrecht. This is the largest, or at least one of the largest creative fairs in Holland, with two enormous halls filled with sellers of all kinds of crafts. You can find stuff to cross stitch, knit, crochet, sew, make cards, scrapbook, make jewelry etc. I don't go there every year, but at least every once in a while, I do visit it. I live in Amsterdam myself, and there are not that many shops that specialize in cross stitch stuff here.

I had planned to buy boxes to keep my floss in, some fabric to cross stitch on and some cute patterns. And I succeeded in finding all of those, and then some!

These are the boxes I bought. They were 5E a piece. I think one box would be enough to fit all the floss I have at the moment, but I expect my floss collection will expand over time, and I don't want to have different boxes, so I bought a second one for future expansion. It also came with 100 cardboard bobbins.

I also bought two pieces of fabric, a black 18 ct aida and a forestgreen piece of jobelin (don't know the count but pretty fine). I wanted a piece of black fabric for a while, and I loved the green color as well. 

I bought these two patterns. The first one is the follow up for the cat pattern I already have by this designer, I liked this one as well. The second one I bought with a specific project in mind. 

This magazine and this pattern with a skein of floss I received for free, as they were selling a new floss brand, and you received this pattern to try it. I think I will definately try the floss, and maybe there is a nice pattern in the magazine as well!

I also bought this crochet yarn, and a crochet hook in the right size to go with it. I am planning to crochet from my book of animals with this. This is a little bit above my normal crochet level, but I will see how far I get, it is always good to learn, right.

The final thing I bought is this coloring book. I already have one coloring book, maybe will show my colorist one day. I really love art nouveau (like you couldn't tell by my choice of cross stitch pieces), so this book immediately caught my eye!

WIP Wednesday Thursday #3

I'm late on my WIP update today, because I was away for the entire day yesterday. I didn't get that much stitching done. I felt I needed to do backstitching, but I didn't feel like doing that, so I procrastinated some more. When I decided I could continue stitching the cat, it was easy and I got quite a lot done. '

My cat finally has eyes! And a nose! Almost all his face is finished by now. I always stitch quite randomly, because I try to look for a color I can finish without counting a lot. So I work on his back for a bit, on his face and on his belly at the same time, depending on where the stitching is closest together. I also did a little bit of the outer border, because his eyelids were done in the same color and I though 'why not?'.

Hopefully, next week I will have some backstitching done, because that definately needs to happen someday! The cat also has quite a lot of backstitching, so there is loads to be done still.