A Stitching "Mistake" Free Pattern

Last week I posted an illusion I was stitching for my own souvenier of Paris.  I stitched it on a prefinished zipper pouch that I bought at Le Bonheuir des Dames when I was in Paris for about 32 hours last year.  There wasn't much time to shop, but I fell in love with this little pouch (and a pair of Eiffel Tower embroidery scissors).  I really like the rick rack trim sew in the seams.  Here is the finish!

Several people guessed that the illusion was the fact that it resembled the Eiffel Tower.  Unfortunately, that's not it - but I'm pleased to have that comparison.  Thanks!  I finished it off with a border and some foo-foo in the corners to distract the eye a little bit more.  Maybe you can see it better in this shot.

Want to test your friends' ability to catch the "mistake"?  Here is the freebie!  Simply click on the chart and print the picture from your browser, or click here for a pdf file. 

I stitched a mini Eiffel Tower and the year of my trip on the other side.  The adorable little Eiffel Tower pattern is from Happy Stitch Project on etsy.com.

Just a small side note:  I remember now why I hate to stitch pre-finished items.  This was absolutely one of the most frustrating projects I've every done!  I am a dedicated "stabber" and I had to stitch on this pouch with the sewing method since it's so small.  I think next time I'll sew the pouch myself AFTER I stitch the designs :)

More Hannah's Flower Baskets

I am always so flattered when people stitch my patterns and love to see pictures.  The Florence Area Chapter EGA (Florence, SC) used my Hannah's Flower Basket freebie for a chapter project.  They were all given the chart without the color key and came up with their own colors.  Here are pictures they sent to me from their January meeting:

This group is always amazing when they do their own thing!  Thanks so much to Julia for organizing the project, to Candy for sending me the pictures, and to all the ladies who stitched these.  I miss you guys!

Chart for Hannah's Flower Basket is here.

Friends Have Stitched Hannah's Flower Basket

I feel so honored that two friends have already stitched my Hannah's Flower Basket freebie and sent pictures. This first one is from Linda in SC who used a beautiful green fabric and finished it into a pyn pillow with blanket stitched edging. Beautiful, thanks Linda! You need to start a blog so we can see all your great stitching.

The second one was stitched by Faye in NC who has already featured it on her blog, Carolina Stitcher. Faye made hers into a pinkeep and it looks like she used some overdyed floss. I love her artistic photography. Thanks, Faye!

I'd love to see more pictures of Hannah's Flower Basket. My email is in my blogger profile. The pattern is available here. If you aren't able to print it, shoot me an email and I'll send you a copy.

Hannah's Flower Basket - Freebie

For those of you anxiously awaiting the Hannah Mary Manley 1864 reproduction sampler chart, let me tell you, closing my shop and moving and setting up housekeeping in a new town has slowed the process down quite a bit! I finally took some time this week to work on it and I'm very close to having the chart completed. (This is the antique sampler that was on display at Berri Patch.)

In the meantime, I pulled a motif from Hanah's sampler and made it up as a pyn pillow. I used 30ct Mocha linen from Weeks Dye Works and DMC floss, filled it with sawdust and added a blanket stitched edging with brown #8 perle cotton. I really enjoyed this project, and decided to offer the pattern here as a freebie.

Note added 10/9/09: Okay, I'm embarrassed! Apparently you have to be logged in to your google account to print or save this freebie. If you don't have a google account, sorry! The file storage site I use is no longer available so I thought I'd try Google Docs. I'm on my out the door for a weekend trip, I'll figure something out when I get back.

Click here to download a pdf copy of Hannah's Flower Basket. If you stitch it up, I'd love to see a photo of what you've done and would love to post it here on my blog. My email address is in my profile.

Just a side note, the background fabric for the photo is an apron made by my Grandma Shingleton from a feed sack. More on feedsacks will be coming up in another post.

Gone Stitchin' freebie

I've had in mind to make a sign to put by the register when I'm away from the shop. Here's what I finally came up with. I think it explains my absense very well!


Even though I've been a linen only stitcher for a long time, I had this scrap of Fiddlers Light kicking around and it made a good background for the fishin' theme. I decided to give this pattern as a freebie to my stitching group so why not offer it here on my blog as well? Here's a close up:


Click here to download a pdf copy of this pattern.

Happy stitching!