Hello. I hope you’ve had a good week. Here is my post sharing what I made last week for my Creative Challenge for 2023. If you, too, are trying to be more creative this year, I hope you made something you like.
If you haven’t already, you can read about all the benefits to our wellbeing that comes from making things, in the post linked above. It doesn’t really matter what you make – some ideas include a doodle a day, colouring, writing a poem even if you’re the only one who will ever read it, trying a new recipe, painting an old table — as long as it occupies your mind and eclipses the stressors of your day, it will do you some good.
So, this week, in honour of all the tulips in bloom right now, I did a “Cross-Stitch on Paper” of this charming flower, first working out a simple pattern for it.
Note that, since you do this on paper, which is more fragile than the fabric that is usually used as a base for cross-stitching, you want to choose patterns that are fairly simple. If you check out my post about this craft, you’ll find instructions on how to do this and links to all the patterns that I’ve tested and that worked out well.
Here’s the tulip …
Sometimes I use all 6 strands of embroidery thread to complete them, but for this pattern, I only used 3 of the strands. Both would work and it’s up to you. Six strands gives a heavier bolder look.
If you layer 2 pieces of cardstock together before you punch out your pattern, you will have 2 to work on, in different colours, if you like. Here’s my second one, worked in red, black and yellow, to mimic some tulips growing in our garden.
Also, one of the themed hashtags I like to participate in on Instagram was asking us to photograph a vignette of vintage tulips, so here are the pictures I took for that, which include the cross-stitch.
Thank you for reading. I’ll see you here next Sunday. In the meantime, I hope you have a great week! xo loulou
