Aida Band

The theme of this months pincushion challenge is Fruit. If you want to decorate your pincushion with a cross stitched fruit, you can use this raisin pattern.
You can use this cross stitch pattern for any other project, too. The raisin may fit a blanket or kitchen towel. The cross stitch motif is 31 stitches wide and 24 stitches high.

Cross stitch motif based on an icon from Mini-Image-Box. Free for personal and commercial use, no redistribution in a collection.

Technorati Tags: embroidery, cross stitch, pattern, pincushion challenge, fruit

Only 4 weeks after Easter and 4 weeks from Whitsun is unusual time to write about Christmas. It bugs me that they start selling gingerbread and other christmas sweets in August. But I think there is a difference to handcraft. First you can never have enough time to prepare decoration and presents for Advent season and Chistmas and second you may want to start crafting in your summer holidays.
That's why I prepare for Christmas.
Currently I still have some aida bands from last year, so if you can't wait send me a mail. These bands will appear first in my online shop, as soon as I get the new bands I will add them in the shop.
The christmas aida bands are 2 to 4 inches wide. I will offer different designs and colors. Most will have a golden edge either straight or as decorative stars. The colors are probably white, dark green and deep red. Maybe I can even get dark blue aida bands.

Booga J started the first monthly pincushion challenge on tuesday. She explains:

Every month you make a pincushion that somehow relates to the monthly theme. When it's finished email me a picture! It's that easy!

This challenge ends on May 31st. The theme for your pincushion is fruit. So you could embroider a fruit on the pincushion. You can read all details in the Pincushion Challenge blog.
If you don't know how to make a pincushion the blog links to tutorials. On the right side below the challenge button is a list of different tutorials. One of the best is the tutorial at whip up.

A french blog publishs every week one or two cross stitch charts. The author Anne want to create a dictionary of symbols. Every symbol has its own page with the chart, an explanation and room for the completed cross stitch motif. This pages can be downloaded from her blog or her homepage (see links at the bottom). An illustrated tutorial shows how to make a page of the dictionary.
Until today there are 18 small animal cross stitch charts available. The latest motifs are the crab and swan charts.
The pages are for download as PDF-file in red or blue thread color. A lot of the embroidery motifs fit on the 5 cm /2 inches wide Aida Band. The motifs can be as wide as 26 stitches. Larger motifs up to 29 stitches fit on the Aida Band with decorative edge where you can adapt the thread color to the color of the pattern.

O'Reilly starts a new craft magazine in fall, it was announced at the Maker Faire and in the MAKE Blog.

From the creators of MAKE Magazine, a new magazine devoted to crafts! Look for it on the newsstands in Fall 2006.

The cover looks and the announcement sounds promising. But it is still half a year till fall.

Aida fabric is a fabric widely used for counted cross stitch. The name Aida comes not from the opera by Guiseppe Verdi but from the weaving method. The characteristic of this weaving method is the resulting gap after every fourth thread lenghtwise and across creating small holes in the fabric. This makes cross stitching easy. You don't have to count the single threads but simply stitch from one hole to the other.
Aida Band is this kind of fabric in shape of a band. Usual widths range from less than 1 inch up to 12 inches. Aida Band comes endless from the loom and is sold either by the length or precut in length of one meter or yard.
The main advantage of Aida Band is the time and work saving because you don't have to sew the open edge. But there are not only simple straight or slightly scalloped edges. Although these edges can have a different color than the band, there are a lot more design alternatives. Edges can have a pattern (e.g. stars or roses), be scalloped or different on both sides of the band.

Together with my online shop for Aida Band starts this blog. My german online shop is open for all orders from Germany.