Tudor Rose Scissor Keep

This little guy is a kit I brought the other month from the quilt and craft show. I've been tempted previously to pick up the kit at other events but at $15- it's somewhat pricey for me. But that time, being on a craft fair spending spree, I finally caved and got it along with the cute scissors I've attached to the finished product. 

Made in Scotland by textile heritage the kit contains aida, floss, cord, needle and chart - also a little story about history of the Tudor rose. The included needle was slightly smaller than usual. I liked it because it let me use just that little bit more floss each strand letting me feel like I was getting a bit more mileage out of each stitch. It may have also made me less likely to try and keep stitching that last itty bitty bit of floss for that last annoying stitch. Or not. Not really sure on that one, just felt that way a couple of times.

To finish you need the scissors and some stuffing. For no good reason I have a random bag of stuffing laying in the middle of my living room. It's been there for several months...lets not judge. But the stuffing plus the pre purchased scissors meant that once I started I had everything I needed to finish close at hand.

I'm not sure what brand the floss is but it was really soft and easy to work with. Precut to the appropriate lengths.  The chart said to start from the corner,  being a rebel I started from the middle of the flower. Ultimately I don't think it made a difference as the aida was more than sufficient in size. 

The cross stitching was straight forward. I only had to unpick half a row of the gold crosses on the back because I stitched the crosses the wrong way to all the rest. Always a fun revelation.  I also did the bulk of the back while travelling on public transport.  I don't think I'll make that a regular thing as I feel it negatively affected my work making the crosses messier than they otherwise would be.

I was tempted not to do the back stitching (or not all of the back stitching) on the rose several times. It just looked so pretty at multiple points that at any point I felt I could stop and it'd still look finished.

Then I was done with cross stitch and ready to turn it into the pin keep rather than a decorative piece of aida. This is where the instructions fell over a bit. I really needed them to dumb it down a bit just for me. Mostly I assume because (or hope because) I've never made a scissor keep before. I assume the instructions would be sufficient if you already had an idea what you were doing. Maybe a few more diagrams?

Anyway after a bit of trial and error involving things like stitching closed the bit my cord need to go, trying to put the tassel and cord on the inside of the keep instead of the outside and pulling my cord out several times I got there. One completed scissor keep 6.5×6.5cm approximately not including the tassel or cord.

I am mostly happy with how it turned out. The side I stitch up after stuffing the keep is rough and fairly messy and as noted above I'm not really happy with the stitching I did while on the train/bus but ultimately it turned out quite nice. I'd do another one if the opportunity presents.

Stash sorting with cats...

Doing a bit of cleaning and sorting today the cats are providing their expert assistance.

Fenn is helping clean.. by stealing the rainbow floss while I wasn't looking

And Dude is helping wind the rescued rainbow floss onto a bobbin.

[make it] timber Owl

Another timber quicky cross stitch done. The photo's don't do this guy justice at all. The pictures don't pick up the bead colours and the metallic thread won't photograph properly - you'll just have to believe me when I say it looks good.

Before I brought this kit I already know I wasn’t going to be using any of the provided charts - though I was tempted by the very cute apple. For another day I guess. Instead I wanted my owl to have owl-y eyes and a rainbow belly. So at the same time I grabbed the kit I also grabbed some DMC metallics.

I wasn't sure which colour I wanted for the eyes so I chose DMC gold E3821 and DMC copper E301 with the idea of making a final decision once I had a good look at some owl eyes. For the belly I picked the rainbow variegated metallic DMC thread E130.

Once I started stitching I basically made it up as I went along. This sort of worked and sort of didn't. I really love the eyes but the belly is only 'okay'.

The Eyes:
I ended up choosing to use both the E3821 gold and E301 copper the for the eyes. It seemed to match real owl eyes the best. Owls have the most amazing eyes.

I used 4 strands of gold and 2 strands of copper.

Once I had the 'iris' circle of the eyes completed I slid a black sequin into the centre of each eye to be the pupil and added a black bead in the centre to hold them in place. I'm very happy with the way they turned out.

The Body:
I started out with the rainbow thread thinking of doing a spiral/fractal thing. The number of holes and the way I started made the idea fall through. I should have just re-started and tried again I think. I would have been happier with the final outcome.  But I decided to move on ahead and slowly created a star.

I then surrounded the star with copper cross stitches.  Partially to fill in the blank areas but also to try and define the star better. The problem with the wooden cross stitch frames is that they're so dark the stitching tends to get lost and can be hard to see.

The star was still fairly lost even with the copper cross stitches so I decided to add some beads. I found a small container at a second hand shop with some clear/white slightly iridescent beads that I thought should do the job and stitched them on wherever seems to fit.

And done. One cute little owl with some seriously cool eyes.