A quick and simple Christmas card

Once again I am being thrifty, the credit crunch and all that. This is made with templates created from one of my drawings. The card used to make Santa is offcuts from Craft Creations and the white has a lumpy texture, the red card is just plain matte. The background gingham is card cut from a shoebox (as they say - "waste not want not"). The card is a red mirror card which was free with a stitching magazine, so all in all it was very cheap to produce

After 8 years

I found this the other day and thought that it was time I finished it off, considering it has been hanging around the house, stitched but with no embellishments since 2000. I found the gold thread and then some beads, so I sat down and finished it. The little bunches of floss on her apron and in her hair were a bit of a pain but now everything is finished, they were worth the effort. All I need now is to find a nice frame for her. The chart was from the Cross Country Stitcher magazine and is not one of my designs

Being thrifty again

Us Scots are a thrifty lot and hate to see things go to waste, so when I found some more old Christmas cards, I had to do something with them and here are some of the results. All I need to do now is the inserts and the sentiments and they will be ready for use.

Peace on earth

Here is my latest design/stitching project. I was playing the other night and came up with this and decided that I had to stitch it. Unfortunately the scan doesn't show up the colour of the cloth as well as I would like it to, it looks navy blue but it is quite a bright royal blue. Also it doesn't show up the sparkly bits in the snowflakes, but I think it is OK. The letters are stitched in white and the flakes are stitched with 2 strands of white and one strand of 032 Kreinik blending filament. It is roughly 8" wide by 5 " high.

It is a quick stitch and only took me a couple of hours for about 3 nights. Easy to do while watching television. It looks a bit skewiff but I just couldn't get it to sit straight in the scanner.

Biscornus, my new obsession

No doubt you are asking what a biscornu is - they are what I call "little wonky pincushions", however, the word "biscornu" is a French adjective meaning "that which has an irregular form, with projections" or "complicated and bizarre." Unfortunately you can't see the whole of it to appreciate its unusual shape because of my uselessness with a camera, however this gives you an idea what they look like. I have stitched 4 of them so far and have 3 on the go at the moment.

I have designed all of the ones I am stitching and the 2 in the photos above. They don't need to just be used as pincushions, you can add a cord and hang it as a decoration. One of the ones I am stitching at the moment is for a friend's Christmas tree.