I picked up a copy of Cross Stitcher at the local newsagent the other day. Almost entirely because it had a cat on the front and a wooden butterfly cross stitch frame. Actually not even 'almost' it WAS the entire reason.
On opening the kit I discovered I had gotten two bundles of thread...This would seem to imply that someone out there did not get their thread. So if you brought the August 2014 copy of Cross Stitcher and your free gift was missing it's bundle of floss. Hey it's at my place, drop me a line if you still need it :p
Getting two lots of floss might have been useful IF I'd ever intended to use the colours and design provided with the magazine. But no I never did. If I'm going to make a butterfly necklace then it's going to look like a real butterfly as much as I'm able to make it. And the 'jewel-toned wooden necklace' design with the magazine..? Not so much like a real butterfly. The original design as seen in the picture of the kit was designed by Angela Poole. My final product designed by me. The design size is 5.5x8cm and contains about 4hours of stitching work.
To begin I gathered some random leftover floss I had running around, black, white, Sullivans #45300 (similar to DMC 970), what I THINK is DMC 900 or something close and from the original magazine kit DMC 3854. Googled monarch butterfly images and started stitching. I made up the design as I went along, this seems to work well for me.
I managed to almost immediately loose the needle from the kit. I may need to be careful where I sit/walk for the next few weeks. Fortunately I had two spare needles stuck in the black floss (lost them too, all in one evening. But these two I at least found again so no harm done).
I used a full 6 floss strands on the cross stitches rather than the usual 2 just for coverage on the wood. I considered going crazy and using 8 strands which would have been really thick and potentially luxurious looking but I didn't have that much floss and 6 seems to work well enough for me. For the backstitching I used 2 strands, I tried 1 but it just didn't stand out enough on the wings to look like a real monarch. Two worked much better although did have an annoying tendency to separate, showing the two separate lines instead of just one darker/thicker thread, I probably should have deliberately twisted it before stitching.
The black in the design is straight forward. The orange in the bottom wings is the Sullivan #45300, in the top wings it's 4 strands Sullivans and 2 strands DMC 900. In the top corner of each of the upper wing's there is one cross in white and two in DMC 3854.
Despite a bit of trial and error the stitching was fairly straight forward except one stupid row on the upper right wing right at the top. I stitched my crosses backwards. The whole row needed to be frogged. While I was cutting out the incorrect stitches I managed to gouge my frame as well. This can still be seen if you look closely as the new stitches dip where the frame is damaged. Though it is slightly hidden by the backstitching now.
Lastly I coated a piece of back felt with some craft glue and covered (most) of the back. This was to obscure the stitching on the back. The felt doesn't quite cover everything but it does the job well enough. It'll make it more comfortable to wear too I expect.
I actually spent the entire stitching experience thinking I was going to break the frame. The little guy was fairly fragile feeling and I'm a rough stuff. Fortunately it made it mostly in-tacked and looking good.
On a final note, the one thing I would recommend when working with
wooden frames is a pair of pliers. Threading the needed under to tie
down an end can be quite hard as the frame is unforgiving and the
stitching quite tight. The pliers make it just that much easier to yank
the thread through.
Finished Product;
And here be some progress picks;
