I mentioned when I finished The Cat Portrait that my plan was to focus on working through the backlog of free gift embroidery kits I’ve stashed over the years, all from my subscription to Love Embroidery magazine. I have a box full of them and a portion were Christmas themed so with the season around the corner I wanted to get some of them done.
In the last couple of weeks I’ve completed five and I actually had a really nice time working on these. After the five months it took me to finish thread painting the cats it felt great to work on something quick and simple!
The robin
I love this little guy (it reminds me of my garden friend!) and I loved stitching it so much I barely put it down in the evenings. I think it only took me a few nights. The short and long stitch is quite effective at creating a feather-like texture and I love the colours of the robin against the blue fabric.
This one I’m going to keep in the hoop.
The gingerbread house
The gingerbread house was more intricate and I decided to try to do it with satin stitch instead of the long and short in the magazine instructions. It took me a few nights, mainly rewatching Peep Show (the series with Mark’s wedding to Sophie).
I’m going to attempt to turn this into a hanging ornament (is it a bauble if it’s not round?).
Bauble #1
I completed most of this in one night while I watched the entirety of Nobody Wants This on Netflix (loved it, was going to write about it but now it’s been a week so might have to watch it again!).
Working with felt like this was a new frontier, and I had a lot of trouble with the instructions for buttonhole/eyelet whee! After about 6 failed attempts I just did them with backstitch and split stitch, much easier and looked neater.
This bauble isn’t really my taste (too busy) but I made it now so it’ll go on the tree (maybe the back)!
Bauble #2 Winter Jumper
This little guy is so sweet and was pretty quick! I watched Girls5Eva latest series (that show is so stupid and I love it) and a bit of Bodkin on Netflix.
The stitches on this are bit messy but I like that, it gives the jumper a more homemade vibe.
I quite enjoyed working with the felt but I hate the whip stitch to join the prices together. I’m not good at getting them neat and even and that bothers me!
Simple Christmas tree
This Christmas tree kit was very quick and easy! (Just a few episodes of Schitt’s Creek). Sequins are a new thing for me but I like it!
I like the colours and the sparkle but it’s pretty boring in a hoop, so I am also attempting to turn this into an ornament. I have some Heat n’Bond left from doing the wall hanging so I should be able to stick it to some felt or something.
What’s next?
I found another felt ornament kit I missed in my first fish around the box because it’s not overtly Christmassy! It’s a fancy swan so I’ll make that, and try to turn the two above also into hanging ornaments, which will be a new experiment.
I then have about 6 packets of Christmas themed design transfers I might again stitch as hanging ornaments, and eventually (when I have too many for the tree) I think those could be strung onto a garland and added to over the years.
The magazines also have some very sweet gingerbread biscuits style felt designs I’m tempted by! They could be little gifts I could post with cards to my friends, but I might not have the time to actually pull that off so it could just stay as a cute idea!
Oh and I have some white jumpers with small food stains on that I’d like to stitch little flowers over so I can wear them in public again, but that’s not something I’ve tried to do before either!
Anyone else working on Christmassy crafts?
