Free Kangaroo Crossing cross stitch design and pattern

Today I have another cross stitch design to share! I'm busy working away on my travel themed cross stitch map, and as I go along I'm coming up with different cross stitch images to represent some of the things that I've seen and done on my travels. Australia is one of my favourite places in the world, and so I decided to come up with a way to represent the iconic kangaroo crossing road sign in cross stitch.

The kangaroo crossing road sign design is really simple. The only colours that you need are a bright blue for the background (to represent the lovely sunny and clear sky!), yellow and black for the sign and a tiny amount of grey for the signpost. Both the outline of the sign and the kangaroo use two strands of black thread for backstitch.

Here is the finished design stitched and ready on my sampler. I added a small border as I will have lots of different images that I want to separate from each other. This design would also be great on a greetings card for an Australian loving friend or as part of a larger Australian themed cross stitch design.

If you liked this travel themed cross stitch design then you might also like these ones:

Free Disney castle cross stitch pattern

Free cruise ship cross stitch pattern

Free London Underground logo cross stitch pattern

The Design Works Christmas ABC Sampler - I finished it!

One of my summer goals was to complete a project which I've been working on for a little while - my Design Works Christmas ABC Sampler (affiliate link). I'm pleased to say that it's finally finished! I always intended to have this sampler finished and framed to display ready for Christmas 2019, and so I'm well ahead of schedule!

It's a large sampler, as you can see from the picture. The sampler was fun to stitch, with lots of sweet little Christmas pictures and bright, cheerful colours. Some of the areas were quite complicated, in particular the red and green parts where some of the colours are very similar. It was worth it though, the different shades of colour give a really lovely effect. The gold metallic thread was also much more difficult to work with than I expected although it does look really good and will make the sampler sparkle under the Christmas lights. It has lots of beads in it too, I hadn't worked with beads before and found them a little fiddly but again they really do add plenty of extra interest to the finished project.

I'm very grateful for the help of my Mum in mounting and framing the sampler! I don't want to display it all year round so I won't be hanging it up on the wall. Instead I'll bring it out with the Christmas decorations and I'll either prop it up as it is now or buy a stand for it, although it's quite big and heavy so I'll need to make sure that it's a sturdy one.

Now it's time to move on to the next project on my to be completed list - the Persian Tiles crochet blanket. I've not set myself a deadline yet (I do like to motivate myself by setting crafting goals!) although it would be wonderful if I could complete it by the end of the year - I've still got lots of work to do on it though!