Cooking with Walter White

Don’t worry – this post isn’t about how my #icandeclutter challenge has led me to a life of drugs (yet). No, the challenge grinds on, days after it should have ended, because I have realised that it takes a lot longer to sort and pack mountains of junk than I expected. Or maybe I just accumulated more junk that I expected. Either way, the first three loads have left the house, and there are only about 40 to go! I will update you all (hopefully soon) when the challenge is finito.

In the meantime, I wanted to share this piece that I stitched up last week.

It is my first ever attempt at cross stitching on linen (rather than aida). This meant that there were no handy holes telling me where to stitch, and I quickly realised that counting the threads was not an option – blame my sanity or my eyesight.

I saw the Heisenberg pattern on Pinterest, and at the time I couldn’t find a link to the original, so I made my own version using Excel (I since managed to find it – it’s on Etsy by Bombastitch if you’d like to check it out).

I decided to trace the pattern on my linen using a black pen – one cross in each black square of the pattern. Then I was able to easily stitch over the crosses – kind of like a printed cross stitch.

I also traced the wording at the bottom on to my linen, and then back stitched it. I forgot to stitch the apostrophe – did you notice? I feel like a grammar pariah. At least you can see in some of the photos that I did actually draw it originally.

I mounted the finished piece in an embroidery hoop. I had to glue the fabric to the hoop at the back, because it was a little loose.

Finally, I glued a hook on to the back, and it was ready to go! I gave it to my friend as a housewarming present – hopefully she likes it!