Here, Piggy Piggy!

I've been a subscriber to Country Living magazine for decades. For the last couple of years one of their staff members has created a series of designs for cross stitch. They have always appealed to me but I choose not to cross stitch. Fortunately the graphed patterns can be applied to other forms of needlework. When I was looking for something to stitch on my small Stitch & Zip cases that wouldn't require much brain power I came to the web site for those patterns. One design in particular fit my criteria very nicely, although I did have to tweak the dimensions a bit.

This simple design gave me large areas in which to showcase the variegations in the hand dyed flosses I've been acquiring from Nancy at Victorian Motto Sampler Shoppe. It also made it possible for me to do a lot of the basketweave stitch I most enjoy. I did make an effort on occasion to moderate the diagonal lines that stitch creates but mostly the changes in shading came through the nature of the strands of floss. 

This little guy was fun to stitch and suited my needs perfectly. I may even do another version of him, in other colors! 

In the meantime, Nancy has a couple of give aways going on over on her blog. You could win a whole box of her wonderful floss if your name is drawn, and she's willing to ship internationally so don't let that stop you. 😊