a birthday stitch

A friend of mine turned 30 last week and was having a 70's themed birthday party. I was racking my brains trying to think of what to get her for a present. Laura is a really big fan or Russell Brand and, since I had just finished making my series of x-stitch portraits, I decided to make one for her too.



I've never really liked Russell Brand and so I watched one of his stand ups while I was making this in an effort to understand what all the fuss was about. I still don't get it but I really like how this turned out.

portraits

Around a month ago I started messing around with PCStitch Pro 9, one of many cross stitch software programmes I've tried out. PCStitch Pro 9 is really easy to use and has one thing that the others lacked: common sense.
The first thing that I made was a Woody Allen portrait using the photograph transfer tool. I've seen a fair few cross stitch portraits online and I thought they looked really great. I'd tried a few portraits before I settled on the Woody Allen, all of which were in colour and would've been really expensive to do. This one was perfect because it was in black and white.


I enjoyed doing this portrait a lot and, as a result, have ended up going on to do a little series of them. I haven't had a chance to photograph them all yet as I'm considering composition etc. As soon as I have, I'll upload them.

matryoshka

I've just finished a present for my friend Aimee which I intended to give her for Christmas. It took alot longer to complete than I expected, but I'm really pleased with the end result.




I made this using a pattern created by the very talented Clare Nicolson, a textile designer and crafter from Glasgow.