Cross-Stitch Lavender Sachet

I just love making little pillows and filling them with lavender, pine, or potpourri. I'm not even going to guess how many sachet projects I've shared on my blog.  I designed this one to resemble a vintage French perfume package. It's filled with dried lavender buds, so it smells absolutely divine, and it's worked in cross-stitch, half-stitch, and back-stitch in just three shades of embroidery floss, so it's quite easy to make. Perfect for a Mother's Day present or a springtime gift for yourself, n'est-ce pas?

The sachet shown here was stitched on 18-count antique white Aida fabric, and it measures 5" by 7 1/2". If you prefer to work on 14-count Aida, your sachet will come out a little bigger (and will require more lavender buds). The lovely editors at Craft Ideas magazine featured this design in the Spring 2016 issue. You can click here to go to the instructions, chart, and key on the magazine's website. Bon stitching!

Pink Retro Telephone Pillow

©2017 Kathleen Berlew

The 1970s was a colorful decade of avocado appliances and pastel telephones. My family had white and beige wall and desk models in our house, but my grandmother had a pretty pink telephone on her nightstand that I absolutely loved. This little pillow is a tribute to that phone and to all things retro that have become cool again. You can follow the instructions below, or click here to download a printable pattern sheet.

To make your own phone pillow, you'll need:

• Pink retro print fabric, two 11 1/2" x 10" pieces
• National Nonwovens WoolFelt®: Pink, Shocking Pink, White
• Pink baby rickrack
• Pink mini pompom fringe
• DMC six-strand embroidery floss: 605 Very Light Cranberry, 818 Baby Pink, White, Light Effects E168 Silver
• Polyester fiberfill
• Buttons: one 1 1/8" white, ten 3/8" clear with glitter

©2017 Kathleen Berlew

Print out the pattern below and size it so the base of the phone is 6" wide. Cut the telephone base and receiver from pink felt. Cut the large circle from white felt, the small circle from shocking pink felt. Sew the white button to the center of the shocking pink circle with white floss. Sew the clear buttons evenly spaced around white button with silver floss. Use cranberry floss and whipstitch to sew the shocking pink circle to the white circle. Use white floss and running stitch to sew the dial to the center of phone base.

Next, pin the receiver onto one piece of the print fabric, centered, so the top edge of the handle is 1 3/4" from the top edge of fabric. Tuck a length of pompom trim under the outer edge of the receiver, pin it in place, and trim away excess. Pin the phone base onto the fabric so bottom edge is 2" from bottom edge and the cradle tabs overlap the receiver slightly. Tuck a length of pompom trim under the outer edge of the receiver base. Cut a 20" piece of rickrack and tuck one end under the receiver and one end under the base, as shown, and pin in place. Sew base and receiver in place using baby pink floss and running stitch, making sure to sew through rickrack. When you've finished stitching, arrange the rickrack "telephone cord" around the phone and tack it in place.

To finish the pillow, pin the appliqued print fabric piece and the backing piece together, right sides facing, and stitch around with 1/4" seam allowance. Leave and opening for turning. Snip the corners and turn the pillow right side out. Stuff it with polyester fiberfill and hand-stitch the opening closed. 

©2017 Kathleen Berlew

All done! Now show it off in your TV room and watch some episodes of The Mary Tyler Moore or your favorite '70s sitcom.

Felt Easter Peeps Basket

I'm not sure what I liked better about the Easter basket I got every year as a child--the chocolate bunny inside or the fluffy pom-pom peep that was tied to the handle. I never outgrew those little yellow peeps. I have a flock of peeps that come out every year with my Easter decorations. Last year, my love for Easter peeps inspired me to make this little felt basket.

The supplies are pretty basic--wool-blend felt in bright yellow, blue, and chartreuse; white jumbo rick-rack; and buttons from my sewing basket. To give the basket some fun texture, I snipped slits on the wings to give them a feathery look, and I added a border of fringed grass around the bottom. This design was featured in the 2016 Spring issue of Craft Ideas magazine. Click here  to go see the instructions and patterns on the magazine's website.

I admit, this basket is too small (just 4 1/2 inches tall) to hold a big chocolate rabbit, but you can fill it with colored eggs, foil-covered chocolates, or marshmallow peeps.

Spring Flowers Cross-Stitch

It's snowing here in Pennsylvania as I write this blog post, so any bulbs that had started to sprout in my garden are now covered in a few inches of fluffy flakes. While I wait out this temporary setback to the arrival of spring, I thought I'd share a cross-stitch project that might help chase winter away.

One of my favorite things about cross-stitch is that it requires so few instructions. If you have a chart and a color key, you can just go ahead and transfer a design from paper to fabric stitch by stitch. You can substitute colors if you like, and you can even stitch on different types of fabric to create different sizes and effects.

This spring flowers design, which was originally published in Craft Ideas magazine, features a geometric trellis pattern of irises, tulips, and daffodils stitched with eight shades of DMC embroidery floss. (I'm not a math person, but I do appreciate geometry and symmetry in my needlework.) I stitched the model shown above on 18-count Aida, which created a design area of about 4 1/2 by 5 1/2 inches. If you use 14-count Aida, your pictured will be about 6 by 7 inches. You could also stitch it on linen or another even-weave. Experiment with different fabrics to find out which work best for you.

If you'd like to give the Spring Flowers design a try, click here to download and print the chart and floss key. As I said, cross-stitch requires little instruction. Just follow the chart and start stitching!