I made a bookmark

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A couple of evenings ago I finished making the little cross stitch mice into a bookmark.

I started by trying to iron the creases out of it (which was a lot trickier than it should have been and resulted in me loosing the plot with our ironing board and chucking it out!) Eventually it looked like this.
I just couldn’t get the crease out of the middle no matter what I tried. I even tried using the steam and hottest setting that I’m sure you’re not supposed to do with cross-stitch. Please don’t try this at home!

I wasn’t totally sure how to turn these into a bookmark but the best idea I had was to use the backing given in the kit and then sewing them back to back using another row of the red or blue around the edge.
It’s looking ok from both sides so far so I decided to add some blue in as well - I thought this would even it out and make it look better on both sides where the colour of the borders is different on each side.
I got this far before I spotted my big mistake. Did anyone spot it on Instagram?!

I forgot to add the string to the kite!!! Nooo

I wasn’t too sure how to fix this but I know I needed to find a way otherwise for me this project would be completely ruined. Once I’d spotted the mistake I just couldn’t un-see it. So I started to unpick the edge and open it back up again. I needed to get to the inside to be able to add the back-stitching to the kite tail.
This was definitely not the easiest process! I wouldn’t recommend it. Always check your work thoroughly before making it into anything or finishing it in any way.

I did manage to get it done and then finished up the sides so it became one piece. Ooh - I almost forgot to say before I finished sewing up the final side I did add a sheet of card in the middle of this one as it seemed like it would be a little bit floppy if I hadn’t. I wanted it a little more rigid than the fabric alone was making it.
 Then I trimmed down the edges.
I left 6 squares around each side so that I had a little space to be able to fray the edges a little.
And with the sewing complete and everything sewed and finished here’s how the final bookmark looks like.
I like the way it turned out. I hope the edges will soften up a little as I use it as they’re ever so slightly spiked at the minute but I’m sure they will all kind of mush up a bit after some use. I know there are several ways to make bookmarks but to make the double sided one that I was after this seemed to be one of the simplest solutions. My friend Hannah over at @quirkyhannah on Instagram has recently made one that she used binding on the edge of and everything. Check hers out for another idea of how you could finish your bookmark.

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