Cross Stitch and Craft Cafe 2026 - come on in and join us!!

Charly27

Big welcome to all the newbies. Can’t wait to see photos of all the ongoing projects. Love the colours you’ve chosen for the crochet @Auti. 

I’m stitching solidly at the autumn section of four seasons. Definitely on target to finish this by end of January although I’ve just seen a few stitches which need frogging 🤦🏼‍♀️ That will be two pages of the design complete and halfway through!
My list for 2026:
1. Complete 4 seasons cross stitch WiP
2. Cross Stitch ‘I do’ for BF daughter whose getting married this year (already have this kit)
3. Finish cross-stitching last 6 months of ‘A Year in the Life of’ July- December 
4. Quilt BoTM French Garden have had this year’s and need to stitch it before the fabric disintegrates!
5. improve my knitting, stitch a scarf for me
6. learn to crochet 

Coxy11

Hi all and welcome @rosie51 - nice to see you here 

The four seasons design is coming on a treat @Charly27. Love that your list is varied and not too long. I'm the same this year - it just become overwhelming otherwise. Look at Attic24 for crochet tutorials - she's fab.

I have crocheted some daffodils but I'm not 100% happy with them, so will redo a little smaller. No rush on this.

Coxy xx

Charly27

Thanks for the heads up @Coxy11. I love Attic24 colour didn’t know she did tutorials!

ruby_eskimo

Morning all, can I pull up a chair in the cafe please?  Only got back into cross stitching last year after not doing it since I was a kid.  Currently working on a piece as a housewarming gift for my sister in law that I hope she's going to love once it's framed.  Will make sure to post a pic once it's all finished.

Once that's done I have 2 more projects to get finished by Christmas - DMC Christmas Dinner and DMC Christmas Deserts.  They're part of a trilogy and will go perfectly in our kitchen at Christmas to swap out with some more generic prints we have, but they are full coverage projects so are going to take a while!  

I also want to learn to knit and maybe crochet as well this year.  I already bought a knit your own snood kit which says it's perfect for beginners but also picked up some cheap wool from Sostrene Grene to practice with first.

Have lots of other cross stitch projects and patterns lying around but won't start them until I've got all these others out of the way!

Coxy11

Hello all and welcome @ruby_eskimo - good to see you here - make yourself at home lol! The housewarming gift for your SIL sounds lovely. Please post photos of progress as it's lovely to see projects coming together. 

I started the base for my yarn bomb project last night. It's a basic square of treble crochets in dark green. This will have strips of red treble crochet attached (x4) that will tie the design to the post box as ours is on a post rather than the floor. I realised after about 6 rows that I'd been dropping a stitch, so frogged it back to row 2 to start again. TBH it'll come together really quickly and DH is out tomorrow night so I can crack on with it. I've also crocheted the word 'SPRING' which I'll stitch on to the base. Still need to redo the daffodils and then I'm going to make a flower pot cover in jazzy stripes.

I went to Canterbury today to get some bits for DS2's birthday next week. There's a vintage/charity shop that I've been in before, so I stopped in out of the rain and whadya know, they have a haberdashery department with vintage linens, spools of thread, knitting needles - just amazing. Anyway I got some black ribbon and a pack of mini pegs from H0bbycraft for the sum total of £1.25! Ribbon is to decorate a hat as we are going to a fancy dress party a week today, and I'm sure I'll find a use for the pegs lol!

Have a good weekend all
Coxy xx

myrrh

Can any one help with question about knitting with chenille please. My friend is having a problem that the casting  starts to unravel after she has knitted about 10cm. Any ideas how to solve this. I have never tried knitting with chenille so have not experienced this. Thank you

Auti

Hi @myrrh don’t know if this will help - I tie a knot at start so it stays twisted and the fluff does not fall out, also am gentle with the yarn as it sheds otherwise - make sure that the knitting needle goes in the loop (stitch) on the other needle - it can be hard to see with the fluff and don’t make it too tight otherwise hard to get into stitch or it can break. 

Will look awesome when done but can be a faff til you get used to it

daisy_1571

Great advice auti

Coxy11

Brilliant advice @Auti - I admit I've not used chenille yarn before and wouldn't have a clue!

By way of a crochet update - green base for post box topper is complete. I have also crocheted 3 of 4 ties to secure it to the box. I've got a clean flowerpot from the greenhouse so I can measure around to get a pot cover started, plus still need to do the daffodils. If I can, I'm going to pop to the local florist this week to buy a block of oasis to stick the flowers into so they stay firm. The post box itself could do with a clean - bit green on one side. Not sure how I'm going to do this as it's on the village green and surrounded by houses. People will think I'm nuts! 

myrrh

Auti said:

Hi @myrrh don’t know if this will help - I tie a knot at start so it stays twisted and the fluff does not fall out, also am gentle with the yarn as it sheds otherwise - make sure that the knitting needle goes in the loop (stitch) on the other needle - it can be hard to see with the fluff and don’t make it too tight otherwise hard to get into stitch or it can break. 

Will look awesome when done but can be a faff til you get used to it

Thank you, I pass this on.