Welcome to my “With Fabric and Threads” Etsy Shop
Hello and a warm welcome to my Etsy Shop.
This website and my associated Etsy Shop are in the early stages of setup. I will be adding additional products on an ongoing basis. Initially, I will be offering a fairly hefty portion of Cross Stitch patterns in three series.
The first series is a series of 6 ‘Bali Masks’ Cross Stitch patterns. The inspiration for these patterns came from the decorative heads of ‘Swizzle Sticks’ that I purchased in Bali as a souvenir of our trip. All 6 of these patterns are now available for purchase:)
The second and third series are ‘tied at the hip’ in a manner of speaking. Some years back, I created a series of Cross Stitch patterns of the Classical Composers. At the time, I was learning piano and my children were learning keyboard, trombone, violin and flute in their high school years. With my love of Cross Stitch and the family interest in Classical Music, how could I ‘not’ create Cross Stitch patterns of the Classical Composers:) I loved every minute of creating the patterns and I got a real kick out of stitching and framing a good number of them for pressies for my children:). There is a series of ‘full size’ Classical Composer patterns and a series of ‘Half Size’ Classical Composer patterns.
A selection of the stitched patterns to date….
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This table shows some of the pieces I stitched from the original patterns. Each are the ‘Full Size’ versions of the patterns. I am currently
working of stitching the ‘Half Size’ patterns, incorporating a selection of different composers in different colour-ways into a grid format to form one piece. More on that further down the track.
‘Brahms’ is also a ‘Full Size’ pattern that I have added a ‘patchwork’ keyboard border to. Another ‘work in progress’. More on that at a later stage as well.
Then, Technology Stepped In…..
…and then technology, or perhaps more accurately, the lack of it, stepped in. I needed to upgrade my computer, thought all my files were backed up – and they all were, except for my Cross Stitch files 🙁 (Really sad face!). I had to put my ‘Composer Cross Stitch’ patterns project on hold for a few years whilst I was gaining my teaching certificates in Hand Embroidery and Patchwork and Quilting. Unfortunately, I wasn’t aware that the patterns had ‘gone’, until I came back to take up where I had left off. By this time, we had a fair collection of ‘old hard drives’ from various computer upgrades etc. but my patterns were not to be found on any of them.
Added to that, the software that I created them on was now no longer available nor would it work on the more up to date computers. Luckily for me though, I had kept the old programme loaded on an older computer and I had the patterns printed in hard copy – still no ‘files’ though.
So now what….?
There is some very good current Cross Stitch design software available. From my research however, each lack a particular feature that I wanted. I wanted to be able to create patterns in various colour-ways within the one pattern. My ‘old’ software did just that – and very well I might add:)
I have physical printouts of my original patterns, the ‘old’ software on an older computer that works really really well and does everything that I want it to do – and then some:). I also have a comparatively new PC, with current Cross Stitch design software loaded (an excellent programme) but it does not have the ability to create patterns in multiple colourways:( The option of re-creating the patterns again on the old software wasn’t really an option. As mentioned, I have previously stitched many of the patterns. I had also had them framed and photographed and was really happy with the results. Along with that, I was also aware that there were many amendments along the way to ‘fine tune’ the final pattern. There was always the option of re-creating each pattern one stitch at a time – literally thousands of stitches – that was never going to happen 🙂
So, the short version of the ‘really long’ story is that I was able to utilise the ‘new’ software to recreate the patterns from the printouts. The ‘new’ software has a ‘feature’ not available in the old software:) to allow me to do this. Then, I was able to ‘fenagle’ (I’m sure that is a proper word) the output from the ‘new’ software to recreate those same patterns relatively easily in the ‘old’ software. Then, off course, I have re-created each pattern in multiple colourways 🙂
Yeah…. Success!
Yeah, really Yeah! I have got that ‘sorted’. Oh, and I have backed up my new files created in the old software 🙂
Now those files are available for you to purchase from my Etsy shop ‘With Fabric and Threads’.
Each of the ‘Full Size’ patterns available of Etsy come in four modern colour-ways within the one pattern. Each of the ‘Half Size’ patterns available on Etsy come in four monochromatic colour-ways within the one pattern. Please be aware that the stitched samples above do not reflect the current colour-ways. The colour-ways within the patterns for purchase have been updated.
The below products are a sample of the embroidery patterns available in my Etsy Shop. Please visit my Etsy Shop here to see the full range of my hand embroidery and downloadable colouring books now available.
