game and giveaway

On one of the Hungarian blogs I read, Rita is having a game/giveaway. Please check her blog out if you want to play.

I'm not sure if these entries will count, so to be safe I am stitching something new. However, I did stumble onto these patterns a few years ago, and the link was one of my favourite for Hungarian folk motifs (one of my weaknesses and true loves - I love anything relating to Hungarian folk culture). I was very sad when the link no longer worked, and tried to search the web to find them again. Thanks to Rita, I now have the new link to some of my favourite patterns! So thank you for that!

I originally stitched myself a pillow (still needs to be made into one) way back in 2005 using one of the motifs from the first link in Rita's blog. If I remember correctly, I used DMC 820 - four strands on 20ct joblean for the my pillow.

The following year, in 2006 I was asked to stitch the group gifts for our Western Canadian Hungarian Folk Festival (WCHFF). By then the link for these patterns I had no longer worked, so I had to use my pillow's pattern to count off of.

I stitched 17 banners in total - I managed only 15 in time for the festival, the two hosting groups recieved theirs after the fact. As well as four little pillows as extra gifts for the guest instructors which I made at the festival itself. For these I also used DMC 820, but this time only two strands on an unknown count of evenweave fabric that one of the dancers brought back from the flea market in Budapest, Hungary. It wasn't easy to stitch on, but once I got the first few stitches in I was good to go.

Here are some photos of the banners: 1. the 15 stitched but not finished into their final shape, 2. what the actual banners looked like (the shape is the shape of our province), 3. the little pillows