Designing my own cross stitch patterns

I designed the Monster Book of Monsters and the Time Turner charts to use in Chapter 3 of Stitch Your Own Adventure (SYOA) Letters From Hogwarts.  

I spent most of the day finalizing my patterns in Pattern Maker by HobbyWare.  

Then screen captured image and saved as a jpeg which I inserted into a Word document.  Added some stitching instructions. 

Then I saved the Word document into a pdf form.

Finally was able to upload pdf file onto the Facebook Group for everyone to enjoy.  

What a pain in the neck, but I learned some stuff and everyone in the group is happy.  

I wasted cross stitch and video game time. :( 

Here is the Monster Book of Monsters chart. If you want a copy of the pdf (with floss colours) leave me a comment and I can email it to you.

Here is the Time Turner chart. Leave comment if you want pdf of the chart.

SYOA - Chapter 3 - Happy Dance!!

Today, I finally finished Chapter 3.  I am so happy with how it turned out.  I added the title of the book.  I tried to make the top word MONSTER slanted.  It is a furry book so the word wouldn’t be perfectly straight.  I also added some fur around the words and slits to represent a nose on the face.

Here is the whole project.  I will take a break and catchup on Peppermint Purple.  Chapter 4 (bottom left parchment) will be released on July 1.

SYOA - Chapter 3 - Teacup - completed!

I finished frogging all of the pink around the teacup and replaced it with a dark brown (DMC 3371) same colour I used for the crack in the teacup.  It almost looks a bit like shading around the edge.

I have decided I’d like to add the title of the book “Monsters Book of Monsters” and maybe some more fur on the cover around the face.  I’ll try it on my computer to see if I like it first before wasting time stitching and frogging it.

SYOA - Chapter 3 - Teacup - update #12

Here is some of the pink thread that I frogged from the teacup back stitching. I will try replacing it with a darker pink.  If that doesn’t look good, I’ll try another colour.

SYOA - Chapter 3 - Teacup - update #11

Last night I finished all of the cross stitching inside the teacup.  I am working on the cream for the parchment.  I will be frogging the backstitching for the teacup and replacing it with a darker colour so that you will be able to see the teacup handle better around the edges of the parchment.

Here is the whole project so far.  I love all of the bright colours.

SYOA - Chapter 3 - Teacup - update #10

I finished stitching all of the lighter pinks (2 different shades - DMC 818 and 963).  Then started to add the new left edge of the teacup.  Stewart‘s original design didn’t show the full teacup because it kind of stopped at the bottom, but since I moved mine to the top of the parchment I felt it needed to have another side so I added a left edge with green vines.  I had to frog some of the darker pink so there would be room for the green vines and pink flowers (rose buds?).  Today I will try to finish the teacup.  I love the crack and chip in the china teacup, it makes it seem well loved because it was used so many times.  Any thoughts on the backstitching I used on the teacup?  I used the same pink around the edge of the rim.  It blends in and not noticeable.  Do you think I should make it darker. So the handle stands out from the cream in the parchment?  I did the same thing with the runes, stitching them with the darker shades of purple, orange, blue and green.  I don’t mind the runes, just find the teacup handle is not as defined.

SYOA - Chapter 3 - Teacup - update #9

I’m almost finished stitching all of the lightest pink for the background inside the teacup.  I love how you can see all of the shapes in the tea leaves more now that there is the light pink around them.

SYOA - Chapter 3 - Teacup - update #8

Today I worked on the lightest pink on the right side of the teacup.  Well I didn’t get the teacup finished this weekend, but that is because I spent time stitching on the Pepermint Purple SAL as well.  I still have all of June before Chapter 4 is released (July 1).

SYOA - Chapter 3 - Teacup - update #7

Today I worked a little more on finishing some of the pink at the top of the teacup.  Hopefully I get lots of stitching time this weekend.  I’d like to see this Chapter finished.  I still have some of the cream/beige to do on the right side of the parchment to finish.  Also, I think I will add the book title “Monster Book of Monsters”.  When I showed it to my son Jordyn, he thought it was a house until I told him what it was. 

Thought you’d like to see how the whole project looks all together.

SYOA - Chapter 3 - Time Turner - colour change

I’d like to thank Jo at Serendipitous Stitching for her comments on the Time Turner.

“I love your rune stones!

I have to be honest and say the gold doesn’t show up terribly well in the photo. Have you considered stitching a line of brown around the yellow/gold? So it looks woven in the thread?”

I thought about her suggestion and decided that won’t work because I am only using 1 strand of floss for the backstitching,  I decided to frog the old colours and find a new one that would still look like gold but with a shade of brown.

Time Turner - old colours (metallic gold chain/DMC 729 pendant).

Time Turner - new colour (DMC 167 for both the chain/pendant and 746 for beads inside).

Here is how it looks from a distance.

SYOA - Chapter 3 - Teacup - update #6

Yesterday I went back to working on the teacup.  I have to create the left edge of the cup because there was none on the original design.  It was designed so the cup just ended at the bottom of the Chapter 3 parchment, since I moved the cup to the top of the parchment, I want it to look like there is a complete teacup (other than the chip and crack from the original design).  Sorry for the pink thread on the left of the photo.  I forgot to pull it to the back before taking the photo.  Chapter 3 is getting close to a finish.  Hope to have it finished by the weekend.

SYOA - Chapter 3 - Time Turner

I got quite a bit done yesterday.  I finished the 4 ancient runes and started the time turner.  I stitched the necklace chain part using one of my DMC metallic gold floss.  I started stitching the time turner with metallic, but had a hard time getting it to look right, so I pulled out the metallic and used DMC 729 instead.  I’m happy with it so far.  What do you think?  Can you see the detail or should I use a darker gold thread or lighter because of the brown fabric?  Should I leave the metallic gold for the chain or redo it with a gold thread instead.  I’m looking for honest opinions please, even if I need to frog. :)

Here is a close up of the time turner and ancient runes.  

It looks better in real life, but doesn’t show up in the photo as much.

SYOA - Chapter 3 - Runes

Yesterday, I only had about an hour to stitch so I started the Ancient Runes.  My runes will spell SYOA.  Stewart designed the whole alphabet using 4 colours (purple, blue, green and red) and I wanted to use all 4 colours.  Unfortunately, S and O were both purple, so I changed the O to be blue and now I have one of each colour.

This is the whole project so far.

SYOA - Chapter 3 - Teacup - update #5

I spent almost all afternoon yesterday cross stitching.  I can’t remember the last time I did that, and it felt great!  As you can see below that I got a lot done on the teacup.  It is slow stitching because the chart doesn’t match now that the tea leaf shapes are in the middle of the teacup.  I am double and triple checking before stitching too much in case it is wrong.  Not that it would be too noticeable with all of the shades of pink.  I stopped on the left because that is the last full row of the chart, I had to add another section (basically flipped the right side of the teacup) to make the other side look the same.

SYOA - Chapter 3 - Teacup- update #4

I finished the 3 tea leaf shapes (grim, skull and falcon).  I started stitching the cream parchment edges in the top right corner because I want to backstitch around the teacup so it stands out from the parchment.  I also continued with the green vines around the edge of the teacup.  I really love the soft pink colours of the teacup against the light taupe evenweave.  I am a tea drinker, so I definitely needed to have the teacup in this chapter.

SYOA - Chapter 3 - Teacup - update #3

I stitched some more last night, I outlined whether 3 tea leaf shapes will go. I will be stitching a skull, falcon and grim in no particular order. I already swapped the placement from my original layout.  The falcon was supposed to be right but now the skull is there, so I’m thinking I should swap the other 2 and then they will be all in different spots.

SYOA - Chapter 3 - Teacup - update #2

Tonight I stitched the rest of the outline darker pink of the teacup rim.  I stitched it all, but didn’t realized it was the wrong colour (that’s what happens when you stitch while watching TV) until I was finished with the whole outline.  It’s my own fault for not checking the colour key, I just grabbed the darkest pink.  I frogged and restarted with the correct pink. 

SYOA - Chapter 3 - Teacup - update #1

I only had a little bit of stitching time yesterday.  Dave & I were busy working on a 2000 piece jigsaw puzzle.  I also spent time playing video games.  I added some more lighter pink, not that you can tell.

SYOA - Chapter 3 - Teacup

Today I started stitching the teacup.

This is my final layout for Chapter 3.

SYOA - Chapter 3 - Monster Book - Happy Dance

Last night I finished the Monster Book. It looks a lot better than my original design.  Now that I see the photo, I will add a few more fur pieces to the left side of the book cover. Not sure if I will add the book title “Monster Book of Monsters”. I’ll try it on the computer program first to see how it looks and if I have enough space.

Here is my original Monster Book design.  The only thing I changed was how I stitched the teeth.

I am moving elements around in my cross stitch program again.  I started stitching the monster book a little lower than I planned which should give more space between it and the tea cup.  I have also decided to not put the blue Divination book in the space.  The time turner kind of looks lost sitting on the book.  I will also move the runes so they will be evenly spaced with everything else.  I’ll show an updated design concept after I decide on placement.