Mini octastrings

A while ago I signed up for the Pillow Talk swap on Instagram. I absolutely could not resist it as it was my favourite swap back in the days when Flickr was fun to use. My partner is a fan of scrappy so I decided to resize my Octastring block for an epic mini version.

Each block finishes up around 6" and as each block is made up of 9 patches they are rather time consuming, well over 20 hours of work to get it to this point, but I think the end result is worth it.

Prepare for photo overload, I wanted to remember what each of the blocks looked like.

I echo quilted each of the blocks with a pink variegated Aurifil thread as I wanted the quilting to be simple and fade into the background as there was already so much going on with the scrappiness.

For the back of the cushion I used one of my favourite prints from Anna Maria Horner with the pink solid for a bit of continuity.

Before sending it on to its new owner I had to get a picture of it with the original Octastring quilt. I will admit this was a really tough one to part with!

I really hope my partner loves it as much as I do! Catch you soon x

The tree is up...almost

I've been hand stitching again this week. I drew up another cross-stitch/embroidery design - a Christmas tree and made it small enough to fit  in a 3" hoop.

There is loads of texture in this mini as I used lots of different 3D stitches to add a bit of personality to what is a very simple design.

I'll be hanging this mini up on the tree along with two other minis I've made - a garland and a slightly over-weight dove of peace.

If you fancy having a go at the Christmas tree yourself you can find the FREE chart in our Payhip store. Catch you soon x