Crazy About Biscornus!!!

Greetings guys!!!

Today's post is all about 'Biscornus' those irregular, eight-sided pillows that have been all the rage in the stitching world for quite sometime.

I have to admit that I only came across them about a year or so ago.  Their quirkiness struck me straight away and I started amassing patterns so that I could have a go.

Sadly, I never got round to stitching them :( but I came across an article whilst going through some old magazines recently that made me realise that if I was going to have a go, I should try designing my own, so I did -- and this is the outcome:

This is the front of the biscornu

This is the rear!

I've modified the design from the Pokemon Emoticon charts that I featured here on my blog back in March -- you can also download the patterns from my website here!

A biscornu can be any size, but I wanted something that wasn't too small or too big for my first attempt (no point trying to run before you can walk!)   This design has a stitch count of 44 x 44 which means the finished biscornu is about 3.5" square.

It's stitched on 14-HPI aida and it's important to make sure that both pieces are identical in size so that it's not lop-sided when put together!  I used Anchor threads, as always.  The border is stitched using Anchor varigated shade #1375.

The joining up was fiddly as the trick is to pick up the backstiches and not go through the aida!  The bead loop that I added about half way round was my own addition!   The beads were some old DMC ones that I had lying around and the buttons came from an old magazine cover kit.

They say that once you've stitched a biscornu, you want to do more, and I have to admit that I have certainly got the bug for it!!!  I've got lots of designs I am working on at the moment and I'd like to do some as Christmas pressies this year so ... watch this space!!!

If you want to have a go at making a biscornu, there are loads of websites (just google the word 'biscornu') but here are some of my favourites:

Polstitches: their designer 'Jo Critchley' has her work featured in World of Cross-Stitching magazine quite a lot.  It was one of their designs that got me hooked in the first place!!!

Creative Poppy: have loads and loads of brilliant biscornu kits and charts!  They also have some fabby 'how to' guides that you can download in PDF format!!!

Finally, if you want to have a go a designing your own biscornu, I've drawn up a handly little template based on my Emoticons design to get you started!:

I hope will inspire you all to give biscornu's a try.  I was quite daunted by them at first, but now I have the first one under my belt, I'm feeling more confident about doing more!

As always, if you use my template to make your own, please be sure to let me see your finished designs!  Oh, and if you come across any cool websites i haven't featured, be sure to give me a heads up and I'll make sure you, and the website get a mention!

Till next time ... Keep Kalm and Cross-stitch! xxx