last day of May

It's the last day of May and you'd never guess what I've been up to! As you may recall - of course you do, it was only the last two posts! - May was my month to cross stitch and boy did I ever! I began with my favourite key, moved on to the next and was left with the final which I didn't much care for. I said as much on twitter and was told to modify the key but I wasn't sure how to go about this (actually, I was unsure about the legal ramifications) and so came up with the perfect solution: to make my own! But where do I begin? 

Well, it all started with a picture and some software (MATLAB)

Once happy with what I was seeing on screen, I printed my pattern onto paper, made some more tweaks before running my aida through the printer (sheet music this time) and got stitching. 

And this only my third cross stitch project - I am ever so proud of myself for designing it! The computer program was really helpful for things like telling me the total number of stitches (800), the number of rows (80) and columns (30). It's simple coincidence that they're all pretty numbers. In fact, while stitching I discovered a mistake and will be removing one stitch from the pattern which I'll tidy up and make freely available sometime this weekend.  

I've had a couple of emails asking about printing on aida. In my last post I talked about my inspiration. A big factor was wanting to disguise the holes - which, by the way, still irk me! But as far as the technique goes, I simply ironed the aida and ran it through my printer. Honestly, it doesn't warrant a tutorial. One thing to mention is to be wary if printing on cream - as this changes the output colour, you may want to adjust accordingly. 

Or just go with it. My first project (on song lyrics) came out on the browner shade of things while my last project (on sheet music) turned out grey which is the colour I was going for initially. 

So that's it for the #MayXStitchAlong, three keys. This stitch-along fulfilled its purpose; I completed a cross stitch project and then some. Unfortunately, I don't believe the Twitter hashtag worked, my apologies if you were caught out. 

I'm wondering what my next project should be. I think I'm leaning towards another series. What are your favourite cross stitch patterns? Are you a sampler type of person? working on something you saw in a magazine? An Embellisher? Or like me, did you see something in Liberty and just had to make it?

All that's left to do is decide where to hang them. S says above his keyboard in the living room and I say on the stair wall. 

It will come down to who hangs them up first.