British Bulldog

I wasn't actually planning on doing this but the bulldog in Cross Stitch Crazy (September 2014 issue - page 35) insisted it wanted to be stitched and how can I say no to that? I only noticed it at all because of the show us your colours contest over on stitchingpirates and thought they might like more inspiration for the people to make something.

As you can see - I did indeed make something lol.

The pattern itself is just for the bulldog with the beefeater hat but the dog demanded some flowers and as I was already unable to resist this dog I had to make it so. Plan A was to make the red roses with a ribbon however the red ribbon I'd planned to use had mysteriously vanished and I only found out after I'd made the ground work and green vines/leaves (long stitches for the stems and lazy daisy stitches for the leaves) so I had to think of something else to use. I decided that a full strand of 6 threads of satin DMC along with 4 threads of normal cotton DMC would do they job nicely and it does - it's lovely and soft and shiny but because of the non shiny cotton it has some depth too where the non shiny bits are. The number of threads was exactly right - nice and thick but not too thick.

On the other side of the dog I did a variation of the long tail chain stitch putting the chain part to the sides and letting the tails connect to create a stem, not how it's explained on the site I linked to but it looks nice so that's how I decided to do it. Then to create flowers I did a gazillion of my favourite fake French knot stitches which are better known as colonial knot using the blue previously used in the hat. Nice and easy to do and quite fast as well.

Under and around his feet I made some grass - I cringed a bit when I put a few blades of grass over his feet but I'm glad I did do it.

Once that was done I was stuck with the decision of how to finish it as I didn't want yet another unfinished embroidery lying around the place making things untidy. A pincushion seemed like a good idea - small and useful though I seem to have quite a collection now so I might have to think of something else next time lol.

The dog is very demanding and wanted a bit of the royal touch - cording AND tassels! Let me tell you that fixing tassels properly onto a cushion that's a mere 3 1/2" square and working through an opening that's just over 1" is not easy but I got the job done. I made both the cording and the tassels from embroidery thread my bf had given me a while back that he'd picked up in the pound shop (dollar store in the USA) thinking it might come in useful - I have to admit that using almost 3 complete skeins was a lot less painful to do when it's not the really expensive DMC that I used in the past. The colours are not an exact match but they are close enough in colour and far enough away from the embroidery that it doesn't bother me.

Having fixed the tassels and stuffed the pincushion came the last issue - the bit I thought would be easy and turned out not to be - attaching the cording. All the places I could find any instructions advised the use of fabric glue but I don't like using glue on my projects and wanted to sew it. Then there was the issue of using 3 colours of thread for the cord - it was impossible to sew it on invisibly - well at least it was for me but I *may* have been doing it wrong lol. As a result the back of my work is not photographed

Last of all I used a blunt needle to tease the threads loose in the tassels to make them fuller.

On to the all important stats:
Stitches: 20 x 30 + speciality stitches around the sides.
Size: 3 1/2 square / 8.9 cm
Fabric: 14ct white Aida
Colours: 10 for the cross stitch + green variegated thread and S321 for the flowers.

Edited to add:

I won second place!! Thanks so much judges