the boy and the girl's happy house

My virgin longstitch project was from a dummy proof kit of the girl with the balloons. I was then inspired to create a boy to keep the girl company and to also make a happy place of love for them. So ta-dah! Here's my latest completed set exclusively designed by yours truly.



A close-up look at the happy love-home for the cute couple. I searched high and low for those flower buttons which I think greatly enhanced the piece!

rainbow balloon

Here's my second self-designed longstitch project. Learning from the first experience - the girl with the umbrella, I kept the design simple this round but experimented with brighter colours and different stitching directions - vertical + horizontal + diagonal.

Here's the sketch on the drawing board. The placement of the various elements - the hot air balloon, the sun and the clouds, and the colours all mean something to me. However, I actually thought of placing the balloon upside down only after I've started it, so I just let it be. A pity the idea came a tad too late. Remember the inside cover page design I did on my latest journal? So this longstitch design is part of my entire inner world thoughts and feelings.



Drawing transferred onto the blank canvas. I'm still trying to find a more suitable canvas with slightly bigger holes... preferably 2mm by 2mm openings.



And now the finished product. I like how the vertical, horizontal and diagonal stitches make the picture more 'pop-up'.



This is getting really enjoyable! I already have some ideas on my next creation. As I'm still in the experimental stage, I'm thinking of doing something along the lines of shadows and silhouettes or stick figures. We'll see how it turns out. Back to the drawing board for now.

stitch and sew

A random impulse pick-up at a Spotlight store turned into an obssession with longstitch projects. Seeing how I have so much wool and thread and needles etc all over the place now, I needed to get some proper housing for them.



So I got this nana-looking sewing box for $10 at a Lincraft sale. I actually really like the pale lilac colour and the embroidered flowers (they look like sunflowers!) on the lid.



Sitting by the large french windows in the reading corner of my room with the sun streaming in, a cup of hot chamomile and honey tea in my hands while I get my sewing kit out to resume my current unfinished project with soft soothing music in the background, I feel like I'm some kind of upper class gentlewoman from the 1800s. LOL



After finishing my first longstitch piece from a purchased kit that included the design, canvas and wool, I thought I'd design my own pieces from the second project onwards. So I started out sketching on the drawing board and finally got a chance to use my favourite Faber-Castells for some colouring exercise! Happy like mad. The tedious part was then transferring the sketch onto the sewing canvas and putting the stitches in.



And here's the completed project (left most is the piece from the kit and the centrepiece was something I got at an artisan market a few years back). Although it looks decent from a distance, I am personally really disappointed with some of the details - lesson learnt: due to the small sized canvas, it's best to keep the design simple without too much facial details. And if you'd noticed, I had wanted to put my signature (I practised it for a long time ok!) on it but eventually did away with it as it was too tedious to sew it on.



I already have my next sketch ready to be transformed into another masterpiece. ^_^