Converting a Picture into a Cross Stitching

The other week my friend messaged me on Facebook telling me she was having problems converting a photo into a cross stitching. She knew I was working on converting my paintings and designs into cross stitch patterns to sell so she asked me if I could convert the photo into a cross stitching for her mother.

The photo was of her mother's mom's dog who had just passed away. I grew up with this family friend and I knew this dog since she was a little puppy so I couldn't say no! Well it took me about 3 hours of tweaking and trying to lessen the amount of confetti stitches to get it to the point where I was happy with it and more importantly where my friend's mother was happy with the outcome. Here is the digital mock up of the pattern:

There are no fractional stitches in it and only a little back stitching for the mouth area to help her little mouth stand out a little more. There is a total of 27 colors in the pattern and it only measures approximately 8x9 inches if done on 14 count.

I can't wait to see the finished product stitched up and to hear the review from the long time family friend. She seemed extremely pleased with the finished pattern and happy that I included blown up areas for easy reading!

If anyone else is interested in getting a photo converted into a cross stitch pattern (copyright infringement free of course!) feel free to drop me a message and we can go from there. I do charge for my services but I will not stop making the pattern until my customers are 100% happy with the finished product.

I Have Been Super Busy...

Oh boy! I have been so busy with my new project while juggling my other projects at the same time! What's my new project? you may ask...I am currently getting together all of my cross stitch designs I have designed and want to offer them to the public for insanely low prices. Stay tuned for more on that!

I took a few days off of working on my new website to have some me time. I stumbled across a new cross stitch pattern that I had to start right away. Its a cross stitching of peony flowers! I started my project on January 30th and I can official say as of today February 3, 2012 I have managed to finish my first cross stitching of the year...and the decade...shhhh.

Here are a few of my work in progress photos and the last one is the final product:

Finished! 

Now I am planning on starting my first Heaven and Earth Design. My friend gave me this pattern a while ago and I completely forgot about it. She was going to do it but as time went on she lost interest in doing it sadly and gave it to me in hopes I would do it so she could see what it looked like all stitched up. Here it is:

The painting is originally done by Ruth Sanderson and converted into the counted cross stitch by Heaven and Earth Designs. I have always been a fan of her work since I received her book The Twelve Dancing Princesses when I was six years old. I still have that book and I plan on getting the new release of it coming out in March with a new cover. I think if this one turns out well I will do the Golden Wood by Ruth Sanderson as well since I have always been in love with that painting and think I will really enjoy doing it!

Cross Stitch Red Rose Small

With Valentines Day around the corner I decided I will share with my readers a free cross stitch pattern that I designed. It would look amazing as a Valentines Day card for a special someone or even as a small decoration for your room! Hope you all enjoy. I would love to see finished projects especially if you came up with a new idea for it. Here is what it should look like when finished:

Here is the pattern. Click on it to enlarge then right click and hit save:

Its the Most Wonderful Time of the Year!

YAY! It is craft fair season and that means I get to set up a table with all of my jewellery out for display and for sale. I used to make simple colourful jewellery but after a few years I have realized that that's what EVERYONE does so I decided that this year I will be different. This year I will make jewellery that requires skill and patients. This year I will step out of my comfort zone and challenge myself to use the skills I knew but was afraid to produce for sale because so much time goes into them. This year I was going to try and sell my bead woven jewellery. Fingers crossed this helps me stand out from the rest of the jewellery for sale at these shows. Here are a few pictures of my newest stuff!:

Cupcakes Num!

I have been busy working on a Christmas fair that is coming up so I haven't been able to cross stitch much this past week. After a couple of days doing jewellery I felt like I wanted to do some cross stitching so I brought out my mom's collection of started and put together kits. In the process of sorting through all of her cross stitching stash I came across a project I had sat down and finished within 1.5 days. It was my cupcakes!:

The pattern was originally for a cupcake cushion and it was featured in Cross Stitch Gold issue 11 (April 2009) and was designed by Susan Bates. It was a pretty cushion but I wanted to just do one cupcake, the cherry on top one. I enjoyed stitching the lovely coloured cupcake so much that I had decided to do two more and make a wall hanging for my future kitchen. I changed a few colours in order to make them all work together and I made sure there was a fruit on either end with the flower in the middle to make it balanced.

I don't know how I should finish it though. It is between framing it in pink fabric with white polk-a-dots and finishing it off with it being kind of quilted...or just frame it in a frame with a soft colour mat in either a yellow or a pink. What are your thoughts? I would love to hear your opinions.

Flower Faerie Update

I had the goal of finishing her skirt by Friday of this week...I made this goal on Sunday night. It is now Tuesday and I have gotten up to this point so far:

I think it is safe to say the skirt will definitely be done by Friday. My goal now is to have her skirt all done and backstitched by Friday so I can move onto finishing her head and doing her wings! I can't wait to have her done.

Update time!

Wow sure has been a while since I last posted. I have been super busy with moving to a new town and getting organized and back into the swing of things! Moving isn't easy and doesn't allow a lot of down time or creative time. Over the past month or so I have been able to get a few things done though and I wanted to share how much I have done.

This is the progress I have gotten on my Christmas Angel by Joan Elliot:

She is coming along nicely. I spent a total of 4 days stitching the update in between organizing everything for the move and I think a couple more days of stitching she should be done! It is a pretty fast stitch if you are able to dedicate a couple days to it. I am just excited to start adding the beads! :D My goal is to finish her by late October...but we shall see how that comes along..I may get distracted once again!

Because of all the reds and greens in her I got a little bored. I kept messing up in areas so I had to put her away for a little while. I then decided to pick up my first ever project on linen that I started about 4 or so years ago. It is the Flower Faerie by Barbara Baatz. My mom has been on my case about completing her since it was one of those projects I HAD to start right away. So after unpacking I had found my mom bought all the missing threads so I didn't have an excuse to not finish her. This was how far I had gotten before I stopped for 3 years:

And after 2 days I was able to complete this much:

I have done a bit more since I took this picture, but not enough to post an update of it just yet. I love all the colours in her and she is going to look so beautiful when she is done.

I have a craft fair coming up at the end of November so I have also been working on new products to be sold there. I have been doing a lot of bead weaving lately and would like to share my newest additions to my collection.

They are very blingy. I love how from afar they look as if they are high-end gem encrusted gold but when you look closer they are just made of beads! They are perfect for the party season that is approaching. If you are interested in purchasing them you can see if they are still available at: http://www.etsy.com/shop/LastingAllure


And one last thing I have been working on are my own cross stitch patterns from my paintings/drawings. I hope to have a pattern up for sale in the next month or so so please check back to see if my current project is up! I promise you it is very pretty and will have beads and sparkles!

For now though I must go do some chores so I can get back to being creative! Happy weekend everyone.