The Making of The Ghost in the Hallway

I love to design at least one new mini cushion with a Halloween theme every year (but this usually turns into 3 or 4 designs per year!), and this year's first offering is The Ghost in the Hallway.  

The idea for this design was born from an innocent looking photo that I came across in one of my research books - I call them 'research books' so that I can justify my near constant purchasing of books on the history of patterns, or on Tudor history or on Chinese and Japanese Art or any other subject that tweaks an interest, as I dip into them and find sparks of ideas for new cross stitch designs!  In this instance, my research brought me to a page on Neo-Gothic Pattern in a book titled 'The Chronology of Pattern.'  The photo in question is of a repeating Gothic-style interior pattern, shown here.

So, how did I get from this photo to my Ghost design? Well, what gave me that lightbulb moment was the checker-board pattern of the floor, leading through to a window at the end of the hallway. This whole interior, with the tall columns and archways, just screamed of a haunted old manor house to me. The feint image of the flowers outside the window then gave me the idea of an ethereal spectre floating there.  So the Ghost in my design was born!

Of course, to design the long hallway for the ghost to appear at the end of it, there had to be walls either side of the window.  I thought I would add some more spooky characters to appear as painted portraits on those walls, and I took those characters from my Bump in the Night design.

Bump in the Night

I wanted the design to feature two dimensions, so an interior scene and exterior scene.  After the ghost in the hallway interior, I turned to the outer edges of the design, which I wanted to create as the exterior of the house.  For this, I looked at my Gates to Halloween design and used those gates so they would appear in front of a dark, haunted wood, showing the huge house on the top of the hill.  The bottom of the design features a brick wall and steps surrounded by candles, which I pictured as being the entrance to the house which then leads into the hallway.

The Gates to Halloween

Now, when thinking of ghosts, I guess we see them as ghoulish grey or off-white, but I needed to add a pop of colour into this design, besides the obligatory orange that simply must be used when creating anything to do with Halloween! So, I looked at my stock of threads - by the way, the stock of threads I am referring to are my cones of stranded cottons which I use when making up the kits.  

Shelves of threads

Although I have a varied range of shades in my stock, I do like to add one or two new shades to the range each year, as there are over 400 DMC shades to choose from!  My recent additions were some pale Heather threads and it was these that I turned to for my hovering ghost, as they still gave that appearance of a floaty being without looking drab.

Shades of Heather (great for creating a ghost!)

Once designed and stitched, all that was left to do was take the photo for the kit cover and the marketing. I love setting up little scenes for my mini cushion photos and I have several boxes filled with my 'photo props', which are odd little objects that I pick up from charity shops, home stores or fairs, that I keep for that just-right time (I have some little toadstool ornaments in one box which are just crying out to be photographed with a woodland fairies mini cushion - another design on my ever-increasing to-do list).  In this case, I plucked out my mini pumpkin covered a smoky grey velvet - nothing to overpower or distract from the finished mini cushion. And here is the finished photo.

The Ghost in the Hallway

If you are now inspired to stitch my design for yourself, the cross stitch kit with includes the chart, instructions and all the materials needed, except the filler, is available with worldwide shipping from the UK either from Etsy here:

The Ghost in the Hallway Counted Cross Stitch Mini Cushion Kit on Etsy

or my website here:

The Ghost in the Hallway Counted Cross Mini Cushion Kit at Sheena Rogers Designs