Made It: Stitched Tulip Necklace

Hello! I'd recently picked up a craft booklet loaded with fun projects. Some of them were a bit country-cute for me, but I always look at such designs with the idea that I can change them to suit my tastes. 

For instance, one project in the booklet featured a counted cross stitched sunflower design made into a heart-shaped necklace. Now, I have nothing against sunflowers, but I associate them with late summer. 

In honor of my town's favorite flower, I'd also recently purchased a booklet of counted cross stitch designs, some of which are tulips. (it, like the booklet with the sunflower design, was a thrift store find). Lo and behold, the stitch height and width for one of the tulip designs is identical to that of the sunflower - perfect! 

The tulip necklace was very quick to make: simple cross stitching, then all I had to do was cut out the stitched fabric in a heart shape, sew it to coordinating backing fabric, lightly stuff the heart, and add a cord and blanket stitching. 

The directions called for six strands of embroidery floss to be made into a length of single crochet; that was to be the cord. My crocheting skills are rusty, so instead I braided three strands of green crochet cotton and attached that to the heart. I used a single thread of the same crochet cotton to do the blanket stitching. 

Here's how my tulip necklace turned out:

And here's a close-up:

Like I'd said, simple stitching, but I think this necklace will be cute to wear when the local tulip festival makes its annual appearance in about six weeks. 

By then, I hope to be dealing with real flowers (and vegetables) in our yard - so I thought it was good to have this necklace done well before then!