Tatty Teddy Loves Cookies

My favourite character in the series of cuteness among the cross stitched animals is Tatty Teddy. I have sewn many of them during the years. For St. Valentine, I made small ones for my loved ones.

This shy guy was for my loving husband - my best friend and biggest supporter. After 18 years of being together, there is not much we could say to each other.

For my greatest admirer and young friend, who sometimes makes me see the world again through the eyes of a sixteen year old. She is a passionate and inspirational, wild and angry and calm and quiet at the same time. It amazes me how quickly she changes in a slow day and how gentle she could be in fast and nervous days. She is my rock and water - keeps me grounded and at the same time makes me run as a rapid stream. I love her unconditionally. 

For my greatest helper, I made an apron. She is always around - scaling and stirring, mixing and rolling, cutting and shaping and baking... She is an amazing artist - her ideas are bright and always delicious. 

I cross stitched the pattern and attached it to the upper part of the apron. For the skirt, I calculated the full 'closhe'. She wants to feel like princess in everything she wears. I made the strip and belt out of sheer fabric. This gives the apron a formal look. 

About Love

In the time of evolutionally dynamic changes, when love is more and more a delicatessen, we hold on to a holiday of St. Valentine. One day, chosen from all 365 in the year, to honour this fragile feeling "love" publicly. How much more poorness could we serve to ourselves in the future, when we forgot what love really is in this misleading gallop of chasing careers, success and fortune...

Love is in the small things - in pale colours, in unnoticeable, but gentle gesture, in a simple good word and in the light of kids' irises. It is like a flower, that blooms after sprouting and gives life to bees. How happy and fortunate we all are to witness this simple fact. Just looking at it helps seeing it.

"Love will find a way through paths where wolves fear to pray"... Lord Byron

Mon Journal

to my daughter - a free spirit that never sleeps and tries to figure out her adult life at age of eight

Why the need of this journal?  She started writing me notes every time she did not want to talk about a problem of hers - small notes, slipped under the door, or left at the staircase, so I can see them on my way to the bedroom. I realized that maybe some things are left unspoken, undiscussed and unsolved. Our journal was a way to take this load off her fragile shoulders. 

Why "Mon Journal", but not "Our Journal"?  Well, one day this will be either mine or hers. When our roads split apart, I will always keep this journal with me. Pictures tell a lot, but a diary is a picture of the soul. 

I found this fabric, lost on the bottom of a rack at a fabric store. I liked the colour, than I liked the fact that I could sew a count stitches on it, so I took it all. 

Why in French?  I love embroidery in French. It looks much more gentle, and I wanted to honour the original I am using the pattern from: "Mon journal au point de croix" from Sophie Bester-Baqué et Véronique Enginger. The original choice of colours is in red, but I needed colours that will match my fabric.

Why not a notebook cover in whole?  Really, this is a question I ask myself now, but I wanted to keep the right side elastic that closes the book. We may not use it, but in case we want it there, with the strips on top and bottom, it is usable. That is why I had to design the cover with small secret buttons so to keep it in place. 

 Just the bottom side of the cover is with buttoned strips. The front is with sewn ones.

machine work: I attached the matching cotton fabric with the sewing machine, using zig zag in different width and straight stitch.

handwork: Beside the cross stitch, I decorated with Uneven Blanket stitch, Closed Blanket Stitch, Uneven Zig Zag Stitch - lots of unevenness, but I like the warned look of the cover. I did some quilt stitching on the roses on the light fabric, to emphasize their contours and to add some colour from the embroidery floss I was using for the cross stitching.

This notebook was turned into a home for my daughter's secret thoughts, that she couldn't speak out loud.