Our Blog

28/09/2020

Hi. I am Eilish, owner of Sew Dublin. Welcome to my new blog.

Well it has been a long six months since lockdown in March and I am so pleased to be able to reopen the online shop this week.

As an avid crafter I am always in the middle of several projects that could be anything from making quilts to knitting, cross stitch, embroidery, dressmaking or anything else that I fancy trying out. During lockdown, I finally got to finish some of those projects while others have been taken out, looked at, reassessed, put back in their bags…. BUT I do have great intentions to actually complete these as restrictions to ‘normal’ life continue for now. Crafting has certainly benefited my mental health during these strange times.

I hope to share with you some of the projects I have worked on since March along with some completed before then. You may like to try out similar projects but note these are not instructions, more like show and tell. Some materials/kits are available on the Sew Dublin website shop, for others you may need to go elsewhere.

So, starting with the cross stitch self portrait above. For this I selected a photo that I then uploaded to the free cross stitch pattern creation website www.myphotostitch.com. From there I was able to select the type of aida I wished to use (I chose 14 count white aida) and then selected the complexity of thread colour range that I wished to use. I decided to simplify the project and make it monochrome. I limited the work to two thread shades (DMC Stranded Embroidery Cotton 310 Black and 3799 a dark grey) leaving out other shades to create negative space.

It was great seeing the image develop as I stitched and I was really pleased with the end result. As with many stitch techniques there is now an abundance of videos out there demonstrating cross stitch. You will see that there are varying levels of complexity. Should you wish to start with a small project, why not try one of our small DMC Mini Kits. All you need to complete the cross stitch is included, your purchase is inclusive of a contribution to Make-A-Wish Children’s Charity and as it happens the completed picture of your choice fits perfectly into an Ikea Ribba square frame.