Scandinavian Christmas: Day 3

Today for the Scandinavian Christmas series we will be hearing from Astrid. Astrid blogs over at Red Red Completely Red, pins here on Pinterest, has an Etsy shop, and is always making such creative things.  She shares various tips and tutorials on her blog, and also shares creative ideas for projects with kids. This is Astrid's 3rd year joining in the Scandinavian Christmas series and I'm so glad she's back and made the time to share these awesome napkins with us even though she just had a baby!

One of my favourite things about the Scandinavian style at Christmastime is the way modern design and a more traditional look blend together. The simple, stark trees; single strands of greenery, circled into a wreath; white, white, and more white. And then intricate paper cuts, woven straw decorations, and linens passed down from family.

To add a little Scandinavian touch to our Christmas dinner this year, I've been slowly stitching up a set of napkins -- a little cross-stitch, I hope, will add that lovely traditional touch to our otherwise black and white (and IKEA) table.

All the designs, and the font, come from "A Rainbow of Stitches", my favourite reference for cross-stitch patterns. Despite the clear gridded patterns, cross-stitch gets much harder when you attempt it on the bias, so if you plan to embroider corners like I did here, be prepared to embrace a bit of imperfection!

The fabric is a red linen-blend that I imagine becoming softer and softer with each year of use. And, as we're expecting our second baby any day now, I sewed a set of four to start us off!

Another huge thanks to Astrid for sharing these adorable napkins with us.  I love the "God Jul" one!  Come back tomorrow to hear from Pam of Gingerbread Snowflakes as she shares with us how to make a Sami Christmas elf!

Little by little

Here is my progress from my latest cross stitch project.  Slowly but surely it's coming together.  I just need to start the border then finish up the edges. 

In other crafty-related news, I plan on heading over to the Little Knittery this afternoon to pick up some new roving and check out their yarn selection.  It will be my first time checking the shop out but it comes highly recommended from many other crafty folk here in LA.

A little stitchery

I recently picked up a cross stitch project from my mom's old stash.  It's yet another "Valkommen" ("welcome" in Swedish) bell pull hanging.  I really like the colors in this one: rust, greens, and blues.  

I've been having an unintentional crafting break these past few weeks.  It just sort of happened, or rather, didn't happen.  So I've decided that I need to be a little more intentional about getting my craft on.  Starting....now.

In other news, I just hopped on the Pinterest bandwagon.  Quite inspirational stuff on there, hopefully it will inspire some projects!

Christmas Stitching...

Here is a small peak of my latest Christmas project, a printed embroidery kit from my mom's linen closet. I'm learning all sorts of stiches I've never done before and love it!

Pardon the camera string that somehow got in the shot, I was in a hurry. Can you believe Christmas is only 2 and a half months away?! It's sneaking up on us quickly!

Foldover tote...and near craft fail

I finally got around to finishing this foldover tote! I'd been wanting a new tote for stashing all my knitting supplies because they end up all over my apartment. This bag is great because it's tall enough to fit knitting needles and still foldover to close at the top.

I used embroidery patterns from the new book I got a couple weeks ago. I can't say I'm in love with embroidery. I'm a quick-crafter and like to get projects done fast. Embroidery involves a lot of time and patience. Don't get me wrong, I still like embroidery, but just don't think I will be adding embroidery to every single thing I do.

The tutorial is over at Noodlehead and is a pretty quick project. The tutorial uses bias tape for the edges but I really liked the design of my lining, so I just folded that over and used that instead. I wasn't going to use grommets either, but after this near craft fail I had to:

Yes, that is a giant hole in my bag if you're wondering. I bought these really cute brass button-fasteners that I was going to use in place of the grommets. Then spent over an hour trying to figure out how to use them. The instructions were in Japanese (again, which I do not speak) and after multiple attempts at using them, I decided to just buy the grommets.

Craft fail adverted, for now. It's done, hooray!

In the works...

I’m currently in the middle of a few projects. I’m using my new embroidery book to design this fold-over tote. I haven’t finished the embroidery part yet. I can't decide what to add...a tree? an animal?
I’m also working on another project from Knitted Toys by Zoe Mellor. I want to make a set (4 or 5) of the toy mice. Instead of just stuffing them with the usual stuffing, I’m going to put something different in each one. Maybe rice in one, a rattle in another, a squeaky center in another…change it up a bit so each mouse isn’t the same.

It's supposed to be rainy all week here, hopefully I'll get a lot accomplished!!

New Books!

I bought my first crafting books in Japanese yesterday! There is such a wide variety of crafting books here that it was a difficult task narrowing down my buys to just 2.

Book number one.

Yes, cross stitch. I've been wanting to dabble in some old-school cross stitch for a bit, and when I saw this book, I knew it was calling my name. I did some cross stitching as kid but never really thought about getting into it until recently. Every now and then I'll see a cross stitched piece and want to recreate it. Namely, my grandma's wall hanging of the 1859 poem, Overheard in an Orchard.

This book has some really lovely designs, some even look Scandinavian. I think I'll try to make a runner, perhaps with a combination of these patterns below:

Book two.

As I mentioned before, I want to work on my embroidery skills. I thought this book had some really fun, creative ideas that you could use to spruce up some onesies or kid's t-shirts. Even though it's in Japanese (which I don't speak a lick of) there are detailed pictures explaining each stitch. There's even a few pages at the end of iron-ons!

Here are few of my favorites from the book:

The wolves just make me laugh. And the octopus and penguin, how cute are they?