Merry Christmas
Hello everyone!
Sorry that I seem to have been neglecting this blog a bit lately. I have still been stitching away. Since it is nearly Christmas, I thought I would share with you some of the little bits of Christmas stitching I have done over the last few years.
Snowman Cross Stitch
This was my first ever attempt to design a cross stitch motif all by myself. I used to think when I was in my teens that because I couldn't draw photorealistically that meant I wasn't good at art. Despite the fact I had produced dozens of fabric and embroidered artworks. Because of this belief I thought I couldn't design cross stitch motifs myself. I finally, in 2013, realised I had been telling myself some BS and I could learn to draw better with practise. So I sketched this little guy. And stitched him virtually straight away.
He then sat in a drawer for ages, until just before Christmas 2016, when I rediscovered him and decided to finish him into an ornament for the Christmas tree. And that's what his function is today!
Hexie snowflake
I made this in 2017 when I was doing lots of sewing on the train for my commute from Banbury to Oxford. I had the idea that I could make a snowflake out of fussy cut hexie snowflakes. Here's my Instagram post when I first started.
I made a hexie flower and then added one additional hexie to each of the outer ones to get the snowflake shape. Then made a second one the same way. I know I took progress shots at the time, but annoyingly I can't find them now.
It took me a while to work out how to join the two sides together, because I didn't have any interfacing, and it clearly needed something to stiffen it. And the odd shape would have made it a nightmare to try and bag some batting in it.
Eventually it dawned on me that I could just leave the EPP papers in place and that would work fine for stiffening it. So I removed the batting sitiches and stitched the two sides together, enclosing a ribbon for hanging.
And voila! A finished ornament.
Felt stockings
I originally made these for Christmas 2012, when my husband and I were hosting my in-laws for Christmas. His family didn't normally do stockings, so I wanted to introduce the tradition to them.
The three green ones are for the women, and the three red ones for the men. The one with the colours reversed was for my sister in law- I found out she was coming after I had started making them and didn't have enough felt to do another one the same. She also has the extra initial to distinguish hers from my mother in law's, whose name also starts with an H.
I bought some craft felt for this. It was the wrong stuff. It was horribly stiff to stitch through. I had to make each hole with a sharp needle and then pull the thread through. So it took me much longer than I expected. But I persevered and all 6 were made and hung from the rafter in our little house.
For some silly reason I don't have any photos of that, so here is a pic of me that same Christmas, holding a chocolate Yule log I made. Which is probably a more impressive crafty achievement from that Christmas.
I got them out again at Christmas 2016, and realised I could make 4 of them work for my family that now included my two sons. If I decided the D and M stood for Daddy and Mummy. So this picture is from then.
And here's a little piece I am working on at the moment. It is a kit from a magazine worked on plastic Aida, that will form a cone shape when finished. It is unlikely I will finish him by Wednesday but you never know!
Thanks for reading and Merry Christmas!
Sorry that I seem to have been neglecting this blog a bit lately. I have still been stitching away. Since it is nearly Christmas, I thought I would share with you some of the little bits of Christmas stitching I have done over the last few years.
Snowman Cross Stitch
This was my first ever attempt to design a cross stitch motif all by myself. I used to think when I was in my teens that because I couldn't draw photorealistically that meant I wasn't good at art. Despite the fact I had produced dozens of fabric and embroidered artworks. Because of this belief I thought I couldn't design cross stitch motifs myself. I finally, in 2013, realised I had been telling myself some BS and I could learn to draw better with practise. So I sketched this little guy. And stitched him virtually straight away.
He then sat in a drawer for ages, until just before Christmas 2016, when I rediscovered him and decided to finish him into an ornament for the Christmas tree. And that's what his function is today!
Hexie snowflake
I made this in 2017 when I was doing lots of sewing on the train for my commute from Banbury to Oxford. I had the idea that I could make a snowflake out of fussy cut hexie snowflakes. Here's my Instagram post when I first started.
I made a hexie flower and then added one additional hexie to each of the outer ones to get the snowflake shape. Then made a second one the same way. I know I took progress shots at the time, but annoyingly I can't find them now.
It took me a while to work out how to join the two sides together, because I didn't have any interfacing, and it clearly needed something to stiffen it. And the odd shape would have made it a nightmare to try and bag some batting in it.
Eventually it dawned on me that I could just leave the EPP papers in place and that would work fine for stiffening it. So I removed the batting sitiches and stitched the two sides together, enclosing a ribbon for hanging.
And voila! A finished ornament.
Felt stockings
I originally made these for Christmas 2012, when my husband and I were hosting my in-laws for Christmas. His family didn't normally do stockings, so I wanted to introduce the tradition to them.
The three green ones are for the women, and the three red ones for the men. The one with the colours reversed was for my sister in law- I found out she was coming after I had started making them and didn't have enough felt to do another one the same. She also has the extra initial to distinguish hers from my mother in law's, whose name also starts with an H.
I bought some craft felt for this. It was the wrong stuff. It was horribly stiff to stitch through. I had to make each hole with a sharp needle and then pull the thread through. So it took me much longer than I expected. But I persevered and all 6 were made and hung from the rafter in our little house.
For some silly reason I don't have any photos of that, so here is a pic of me that same Christmas, holding a chocolate Yule log I made. Which is probably a more impressive crafty achievement from that Christmas.
I got them out again at Christmas 2016, and realised I could make 4 of them work for my family that now included my two sons. If I decided the D and M stood for Daddy and Mummy. So this picture is from then.
And here's a little piece I am working on at the moment. It is a kit from a magazine worked on plastic Aida, that will form a cone shape when finished. It is unlikely I will finish him by Wednesday but you never know!
Thanks for reading and Merry Christmas!
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