A slight departure from the papercutting, but it is very 'me'.
For many, many years I have loved cross stitch. I think it started when I was young with those little kits that eventually make up a little card type thing that you can give to someone - you know the thing.
Anyhow, over the years I've often turned back to cross stitch as something 'just for me'. I am a bit of a fiddler, and can never just sit and watch a film without my hands working in some way.
I love all the bright colours, and how an image comes together in almost pixels (it's what I see the crosses as, which I think goes with the whole graphic design background).
Here's a few of other people's designs that I've stitched over the years, and actually have up around my house:
(Left: Pretty Little London by Satsuma Street. Top right: Open Your heart by Stitchrovia. Bottom right: Hug by Emily Peacock)
Anyhow, this has now lead me on to dipping my toe into the whole cross stitch design world and made up some kits.
I started by releasing my fox and squirrel designs, which had previously been sold as papercuts. I like doing things in odd numbers (I know, weird!), so I also created a hedgehog to sit alongside with them - which ended up being the most popular!
I started creating the patterns last Summer, there is a LOT of stitching and re-stitching that goes into drawing up a pattern - I'm not sure I really appreciated that before. A few corrections and the odd colour change along the way and they came together nicely.
Thankfully, my hubby Nick designed me some beautiful packaging for the kits as I was getting a little 'fatigued' with it all. I'm so pleased with how they all look and can't believe my luck that they've started selling really well.
So I'm afraid, there will be far more coming out this year - as I've quite enjoyed the challenge of creating something completely new from scratch. 
(Photo credit: Vanessa Lingwood @hoophaberdashery)
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