Snowy Pen

A couple of weeks ago, Erica and I got together for a bit of weekday escape. We headed over to the Bata Shoe Museum, and then went off for a fabulous teppanyaki lunch. The shoe museum is much more fascinating than you would expect. It is really amazing the things we have put on our feet. We saw shoes ranging from the grass clogs that Ötzi the iceman wore, to the lotus shoes worn by Chinese women with bound feet, all the way up to gaudy pumps Madonna wore during one of her tours.

After our day out, we finally exchanged Christmas gifts. What can I say, we were a bit late this year. 😉

Erica spoiled me, of course, with a lovely bag and a needle roll (pictures soon!), as well as a knitting stitch-a-day calendar (which I adore). And, she also gave me a Stitch-a-Pen kit from Kreinik.

As I’m sure you can guess, I got to work on the Stitch-a-Pen right away. I thought about designing my own little picture for it, but I knew if I did that I would never get around to stitching the darn thing. (I have a small tissue holder that is still waiting for something, and I’ve had it for about five years!)

Stitch-a-Pen from Kreinik (Silver Snowflakes kit)

The kit comes with a pen, perforated paper, a pattern, and a card of Kreinik metallic threads.

Stitch-a-Pen kit contents (after I stitched the pen)

The pen comes apart smoothly, and it is easy to insert the finished cross stitched piece. You just need to be sure to carefully bend the perforated paper before trying to put it all together.

My only issue with the kit is that the provided chart creates a design that is actually about two stitches too large for the space inside the pen. I ended up leaving off the small bottom snowflakes. (Although, when I trimmed the paper, I trimmed one row too much. So, my paper could be bigger, but I still wouldn’t have had room for the design as charted.) It seems to me that the pen will comfortable fit a design of 33 high by 24 wide stitches on 14 count perforated paper.

If you are curious about the pen, it is the ShowOff Pen by Cottage Mills. It uses standard Parker Pen refills, and writes quite nicely.