This Flower Garden Pillow is one of my all-time favorite
cross-stitch designs, so I'm thrilled to see it on the pages of Just
CrossStitch magazine's August 2019 issue (available now--click here to purchase
and download the issue at Annie's Craft Store). As anyone who publishes their needlework
patterns in print or online knows, the journey from design concept to
publication can be a long--and sometimes challenging--process. In this post, I
thought I'd take you behind the scenes and share this particular project's
story.
The large floral design you see on the pillow began as a
doodle in PatternMaker for Cross-Stitch, the cross-stitch software program I use. I love playing
with big blocks of bright colors and arranging them into geometric patterns. Since
I'm not a fan of complicated color changes, I decided to use a combination of
variegated and solid-color embroidery floss to add some depth to the
design. After hours of fiddling and repositioning the petals and leaves, I was finally happy with how the arrangement
looked.
Last September, when I received Just CrossStitch magazine's
July/August submission call seeking floral designs, I decided it was time to
send my flower pattern out into the world. In October, I learned that the
design had been accepted--yay! At the editors' request, I tweaked the size of the design and got the go-ahead on the finalized version. I agreed to stitch and finish the piece myself and
was given a December deadline that was just a few days before Christmas.
I knew that two months would give me plenty of time to
finish the pillow, but let me tell you, this design has a LOT of stitches (12,939
to be exact). I kept a time log and calculated that I spent about 70 hours on
the cross-stitching. Every evening for several weeks, I curled up on my corner
of the couch and listened to TV (needleworkers rarely actually watch) while I
stitched away. Since I have a compulsive need to be not just on time but early
for everything I do, I was able to ship the finished pillow to the editors on
the last day of November. And then I moved on to other projects while my pillow
made its way through the magazine's editorial process.
Even though dozens of my designs have appeared in craft magazines, each new publication is exciting. And it's always nice when the projects I've made find their way back home. I'm happy to say that after the backyard photo shoot that yielded the pictures you see in today's post, the Flower Garden Pillow has now joined the ever-growing collection of handmade pillows on the couch in my craft room. During its absence, I've been working on bunches of other cross-stitch, sewing, and crochet projects. Some of them are now navigating the publication pipeline, and I'm already looking forward to seeing each one of them in print.
