This week I’ve been on a bit of a roll finishing cross-stitch smalls. I’ve not one but three finishes to share!

I’m trying to work my way through my stash of kits and patterns (preferably quicker than I buy them!) so after I stitched the nuthatch I had a change of scene from the bird kits and found a Shepherds Bush pattern which I think I bought last year from a destash site. It sounds like a new one as it’s called ‘Be Nice’ and there’s been a lot of Bee Safe and such like but this one is actually from 2006.

It’s a very pretty design with pink lettering, flowers twining round and bees buzzing round too. It was pretty quick to stitch as well. The original design has lots of JABCO buttons (like 8) of bees, flowers, hearts and bees. They’re lovely are the JABCO beads but over here in the UK they are pretty expensive too. I’ve a handful in my stash so I was planning to include one or two, but when I tried them even the tiniest bee was almost too big, probably because I’d used 36 count linen instead of the 11 count aida in the pattern! I decided to just squeeze one tiny bee on in the letter ‘e’.

To finish it I found some soft green quilting cotton which matches beautifully. Pink ric-rac picked out the colours of the letters and the flowers. I rummaged in my stash for some odd buttons and made some cord using green and pink DMC thread.

Whilst I was couching the cord on I decided to add a pink bead on every stitch, trying to lay them on the front of the cord. I fashioned a bow, used beads for the knot and added a flower charm on a short length of beads.

I think the pink and green make such a pretty pillow.

Next to be finished was a cloverleaf design which I stitched last year (I think!) it was a freebie from Faby Reilly. It’s less than two inches square, little and cute.

I tried the dark green cotton first but it was too dominating for the main fabric. I cut a one inch strip, folded it in half and made a narrow flange. I added some ric-rac with a bit of pink on to bring out the pink in the centre of the leaf. I titivated the ric-rac with some green beads and then finished with cording and beads like before. This one has a glass flower bead instead of a charm hanging from the bow. Perfect for St Patricks Day next month.

This evening I finished the kookaburra which I stitched in the autumn. This was the first of the Fido Stitch Studio kits I made.

He’s is a bit bigger than the other smalls so I just backed it with a taupe cotton with little blue flowers on, it matches nicely. I felt the bottom corner looked a bit bare so I chose three buttons to fill the gap. Again I trimmed the seam with a cord made from DMC threads and little blue beads.

I’ve still three more smalls to finish, but I’m making progress, and more importantly, the pile is going down not going up!