HAPPY EASTER

Hey there,

Happy Easter!

I love this time of year when everything is coming to life in the garden and the days get longer and brighter and it is time to cast aside  those winter blues.   I have a great little project for you this week.

I have a dear friend who had a birthday this week - one of those ones with a '0' on - so I wanted to make a special gift.  She is a horsey kinda gal, so that needed to figure in it and also a big Kaffe Fassett fan.  Inspired by my Dalarna Horse that sits on my kitchen windowsill, I decided to make a folksy cushion,  using this charming motif.

Dala Horses come from the Dalarna region of Central Sweden.  Originally made by men working in the forests of Sweden, they carved them during the long winter evenings and brought them the villages for the children to play with.   They also used the painted folk motifs that are found the walls of many old wooden swedish houses and pieces of furniture to decorate the horses.  However it wasn't until the World Exhibiton in 1939 in New York City that they became really known to the world.  The Swedish delegation put a giant wooden horse outside their pavilion and it caused a sensation.

Apparently, as a result of this exhibition, thousands of  Dala horses were shipped to the US and thus a new symbol for Sweden was born.   When we lived in Stockholm,  I loved looking at the array of these horses that were for sale in the old town of Gamla Stan.  The patterns and colours were beautiful and as a fan of traditional crafts and folk art, this certainly ticked all the boxes.

I think my cushion turned out to really fun and there is a FREE PATTERN and INSTRUCTIONS on how to make it on the 'Tutorials' page of the blog.  Just click on the button at the top and you will find it.

Once it was done - I liked it so much, I had to make another one!

If you hop along to the tutorials page, you will see that there are quite a few new ones.   Some of these will support my patterns, once they are ready and they are generally full of, what I hope is, useful information.   

Also available to download now is my 'Stitch Directory' Guide.  You can find this on the tutorials page too - just look for those silver shoes.  

I know that people get a little freaked out by the idea of hand embroidery, but really it is therapeutic and uncomplicated thing to do.  You can do it front of a good movie and create something beautiful and unique.   Some of my new patterns will have embroidery on, so I hope you will pop back soon to see them, once my little shop is up and running.

Anyhow hope you have a fab easter and find some sunshine, some family time and maybe even some eggs.

Happy Stitching..... Ruby x