Six new stitching card designs have been added to the Pinbroidery pattern collection. They were inspired by the song “The Twelve Days of Christmas”. They feature six geese a laying, five gold rings, four calling birds, three French hens, two turtle doves and a partridge in a pear tree.

The design has pricking patterns of two sizes: 144 x 144 mm (5.65 x 5.65 inches) and 152 x 104 mm (6 x 4½ inches). The square pricking pattern has words down each side and the rectangular pattern omits the words.

The patterns are available individually and in a value pack of all six designs.

The Value pack can be found on the following web page:

http://www.pinbroidery.net/product.php/83/

The individual Christmas word patterns are in the Christmas section at:

http://www.pinbroidery.net/section.php/8/1/

An eye-catching curve stitching design that creates a heart within a circle has been added to the free pattern section of the Pinbroidery website. The illustration shows the design stitched in confetti pink thread. The pattern size is 120 mm x 120 mm (4¾ x 4¾ inches).

The design is a scaled down version of a mathematical pattern that I created for my String Art Fun website. If you are interested in creating pictures with nails and string then you can download the free string art heart circle pattern there.

Please let me have your thoughts on this geometric design. Is this the kind of design you are interested in? Would you like to see more? Let us know in a comment to this blog.

The remaining initials have been added to the Pinbroidery pattern collection. They are available individually and also in three sets: A to G, H to N and O to Z.

See the patterns in the Initials section of our online store.

Seven card designs featuring the initials A through to G have been added to the Pinbroidery pattern collection. More initials will be added in due course.

These Pinbroidery initial patterns make beautiful personalised cards for birthdays and other special occasions.

The patterns are supplied in two sizes; 144 x 144 mm (5.65 x 5.65 inches) and 120 x 120 mm (4.75 x 4.75 inches). This gives you the flexibility to choose the size that suits your style of card making and to comply with any postal regulations on large sizes of cards.

Please let me know how you get on with the initial designs in a comment to this post.

Following customer feedback a set of six mini Christmas prick and stitch patterns have been released here at the Pinbroidery web site. The size of these patterns is 88 mm x 114 mm (3.5 x 4.5 inches). These mini patterns use sections of the larger Value Pack 3 Christmas patterns also available at Pinbroidery. They feature bells, candles, Happy Christmas, a fur tree, a poinsettia and a sleigh. These patterns make beautiful cards for the Christmas season.

Following customer feedback a set of six mini flower prick and stitch patterns have been released here at the PinBroidery web site. The size of these patterns is 88 mm x 114 mm (3.5 x 4.5 inches). These mini patterns use sections of the larger square William Morris inspired patterns also available here. They make a beautiful card for birthdays, congratulations and other special occasions.

If you want to try this size of pattern before you buy there are two free mini stitching patterns in the free section of our web site. These are a reworking of the free flower corners and star border patterns.

I chose the 88 mm x 114 mm size because blank double-fold cards of this size are readily available in the UK from suppliers such as Craft Creations.

A lot of customers have asked me to design smaller versions of the square PinBroidery patterns. When a customer asked for much smaller cards I realised that this could be achieved by taking elements of the larger design without reducing them. An experiment on the two free PinBroidery patterns showed that this was possible so I moved on to the William Morris inspired flower designs.

I am now working on some mini versions of the PinBroidery Christmas patterns.

Please let me know what you think about this smaller size of pattern.

PinBroidery customer Ivy Crowhurst has sent us a picture of her interpretation of the PinBroidery Christmas tree design. The tree is beautifully stitched in black thread with deep red beads for the decorations and red and silver beads for the candles. It makes a striking card that has a gothic feel to it.

A couple of PinBroidery customers have contacted me because they had a problem stitching the scroll of the Christmas tree design. They are seeing each loop as a separate section and trying to stitch them individually.

The scroll is not separate loops, it is a very long continuous line that loops around to give the shape of the tree. The pattern includes a small diagram that illustrates this.

One advantage of having the pattern on a PDF file is that you can zoom in to the diagrams on the computer screen. If you zoom in to the finished diagram you will get to the point where you can see clearly where the individual stitches go.

Another way of understanding the concept of the scroll is to download the free corner scroll pattern from my prick and stitch is my craft blog. This is a simple scroll using stem stitch. The Christmas tree scroll works in a similar way to the corner scroll but the spacing of the holes is greater.

Please let me know if this explanation helps you.

Ten new number patterns have been added to the PinBroidery pattern collection. They feature the numbers 0 to 9 entwined with decorative flowers and leaves. Numbers can be combined to make any number.

The individual numbers are centralised on the pattern. When two patterns are combined they will look more attractive if each number is moved towards the centre of the combined pattern.

To create a pricking pattern for the number 21 print out numbers 2 and 1.

Trim the left-hand edge from number 1.

Overlap the two patterns using the box outlines as a guide to getting them level. When you are happy with the spacing join the two patterns together with clear self-adhesive tape.

You pattern is now ready to place over your blank greetings card to prick out the pattern. Centralise the number on your card before proceeding.

If you have any comments about the numbers please let me know by adding a comment to this post.

It is possible to take a snapshot of your computer screen and then paste the result into an image editing program. This procedure will enable you to change the size of a pricking pattern. This demonstration uses a Microsoft Windows PC together with the Microsoft Paint image editing program.

Step 1. Open your image editing program. If you have Microsoft Windows you will find Microsoft Paint in the “Accessories” folder.

Step 2. Open the pattern file in Adobe Reader. Go to the pricking pattern page and use the size plus and minus buttons to fill the screen with the pricking pattern.

Step 3. Press the “Print Screen” key. This is usually found on the top-right of your keyboard.

Step 4. Go to Microsoft Paint and select “Edit – Paste” from the dropdown menus. This will paste the snapshot of your computer screen into the image editing area. Read the rest of this entry »