Tuesday, August 5, 2008

Hand-Stitched Box w/Tutorial


So I stumbled upon this GORGEOUS hand-stitched box and thought "I must make one!".

Lucky for me, creator Pins And Needles was nice enough to include a tutorial and even goes as far as to call it "really very easy".

"YAY!", I thought, "I'll run out and buy whatever I need tonight, I must must must have one! Or even two or three!!"

And as I skimmed through the instructions, it did indeed seem pretty easy... to construct the box. What I failed to realize is that this woman is a seriously accomplished needlepoint-er, and I have absolutely no hope of recreating this gorgeous piece... In fact, the portion I was looking for, an in depth explanation as to how she made each and every amazing stitch was compiled into one simple sentence, "Decide on the dimensions of your box, and stitch a band to go right around the outside."

Darn.

Anyway- the box is amazing, her instructions to make it are simple and clear, and if you happen to have amazing needlepoint skills, please give it a shot. And if you're feeling generous- I know a certain blogger who would love to get her hands on one!!

Enjoy!!



***Update- the creator of this box & tutorial has been kind enough to leave some more details on how she created the amazing stitches. Check the comments on this post to see them. Thank you so much Jocelyn!!!




2 comments:

Anonymous said...

I am honoured to find my box appearing on your blog! Thank you so much.

As for how to do the stitching ... pretty easy really! First of all, make a few diagonal squares, rectangles and triangles using smyrna crosses to outline them.
A smyrna is an ordinary old cross-stitch over 2 threads with an straight-up-and-down cross over the top. Make one, then do another at the diagonal, and another, and another, then one at right angles to create the corner - keep going till you've made a rectangle. Make another one joining on to it.

Make some long and thin - maybe 4 smyrnas across the short end. Make some squares - 3 smyrnas, 8 smyrnas and anything in between.

Make some L-shaped around a square.

At the edges you will have some triangles.

Don't stress about it - just fill the area with rectangels, squares and triangles of different sizes and shapes. Use the same thread throughout (I used #5 perle on 18 count canvas.

Then fill every single one - use a variety of threads (# 5, 8, 12 perles, crochet cotton, WaterColours, any of the Rainbow Gallery threads etc) in your chosen colour palette. I used mostly browns and ecrus, and also a variegated Watercolors along with a few DMC solids in colours that matched the Watercolours.

Use any of the stitches in a needlepoint book. A great opportunity to try out stitche, with each area of stitch being pretty small. There are lots of free stitch patterns availbale on the internet.

Here's a link to a free fancy stitch that I like:
http://www.neonflamingo.com/TwistedStitches/directions.htm
Jocelyn

Anonymous said...

Oh, the link at the end didn't seem to work.

Go to neonflamingo.com then click on Free Charts, and check out Twisted Stitches.

 

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