friendship week: oversize cross-stitch

Not long ago, I was watching the Wind in the Willows, and I happened to notice a sampler on the wall in Mole End. It's a traditional Home Sweet Home cross-stitch piece, and you can catch a glimpse at 6:35 in this video.

I'm not sure if it was the scale of the sampler (at least in my mind...thinking about these characters/animated puppets), or something else entirely, but when I saw it, I wanted to try making a sampler of sorts.

The first thing I did was download the Home Sweet Home font. In a nice big size, I typed out "My Sister, My Friend." I wanted it to be slightly cheesy as a gift for my sister (my friend!). But looking at the "stitches", they weren't big enough for what I had in mind, while still fitting in an normal-sized hoop.

So I tried a single letter, and made it as big as would fit on a piece of paper. An "A" for Anna, my sister (who has a birthday coming up...good thing she doesn't read my blog!). It was perfect, and so I transferred the Xs onto fabric.



It's a little tricky to see here, but the Xs are traced with water-soluble pen. Each is about 3/4".



I considered stitching the Xs with a backstitch, or something similar, but I wanted oversized authenticity, so these are just regular cross stitches. Because of the size of each stitch, I really don't recommend this idea for anything that has the potential to snag.



All finished, and ready to finish off for hanging.

From Wind in the Willows to cheesy friendship saying to a monogram my sister will actually display, this was a fun process. Next time I might try making the stitches a little smaller, but going with a slightly more complex design. You know...one that requires more than 20 stitches!