What Are You Stitching?

Whilst Charles Dickens’ ‘A Christmas Carol’ features the ghosts of Christmas past, present and future, this week’s What Are You Stitching? is celebrating the stitching of Christmas past, present and future. Enjoy what the Inspirations Community have created in the past, that will be used to celebrate Christmas present as well as those future Christmases yet to come.

Cristina Casoli

‘I have been cross stitching for many years, and I like to invent unique things, especially with how they’re finished.’

‘A few years ago, I saw a shop that offered beautiful Christmas decorations, including a mailbox for Santa Claus and I realised I could cross stitch one using Diamant 3852 thread.’

‘There were times the design, construction and finishing took me to despair, but I got to the bottom of it all, especially with the precious help of a carpenter friend!’

Cristina, we love that you were courageous enough to design, construct and finish such an elaborate project! Each element has been finished to perfection. The mailbox would add a sense of festivity and whimsy to each Christmas it’s displayed. Well done.

Judy McMullan

‘This is a Christmas stocking I made last fall.’

‘It uses my own drawings and design and may just have been a little bit inspired by ‘Sahara’ from Inspirations issue #43!’

‘It is a companion piece to a stocking I designed and made a couple of years ago with goofy-looking sheep.’

Judy, both designs are fanciful, the stitching impeccable and the construction faultless! We can just imagine how delighted Rowan and Shae would be when they see them afresh each festive season.

Penny Wilton

‘I love Christmas decorations! I have been working towards my ambition to have my Christmas tree decorated with nothing but hand-made decorations for the last few years. To that end I have been working on several Alison Cole Christmas decorations and try to make at least one each year.’

‘I also make a different Hardanger Christmas decoration each year, which I then give to friends and family – last Christmas I made 23.’

‘My tree is also adorned with a range of other hand-made decorations I have been given by friends over the years, as well as a pipe-cleaner Santa Claus that my parents bought for their first Christmas together in 1946!’

Penny, you are well on your way to achieving your ambition of a tree laden with handmade decorations! It must be an absolute joy to get them out each year, see how the collection has grown and carefully hang them on the tree, all the while recalling the many hours of stitching joy they brought you.

Susan Mills

‘We Three Kings was my eldest daughter’s favourite Christmas carol when she was growing up. I’ve spent the past seven years, as life and time allowed, stitching this needlepoint stocking for my wonderful, and now grown, daughter Lauren. It was designed by Liz Goodrick Dillon, and I just had to share it with you now that it is finally complete!’

Susan, what an exquisite stocking! They say all good things come to those who wait, and while Lauren may now be grown, the Christmas stocking will always be a lovely reminder of the carol that meant so much to her growing up. Amazing.

Teresa

‘You sometimes write about UFO’s, and I thought I’d write in about an inherited UFO of mine. My mom got a Vogue embroidery pattern in the 1970s that was instructions for 10 different Christmas ornaments and a stocking.’

‘She bought all the supplies way back when – a yard or two of super thin white felt, J&P Coats floss, and yards and yards of various ribbons and cording. She ironed on all the transfers for the ornaments and stockings she wanted to make – 34 ornaments and three stockings in all.

She then completed embroidering one stocking and six ornaments. For whatever reason, nine ornaments were started but left uncompleted when everything was bundled up into a cookie tin where the project sat and sat and sat.’

‘One day, maybe a decade ago, she gave me the tin. I was a little daunted as not only was all the embroidery in satin stitch, which I’ve never been very good at, but my mom’s stitches were beautiful.

However, during the early days of the pandemic I tried my hand at embroidery again after a 40-year hiatus and started work on my mom's 40-year-old UFO!’

‘I’m not quite done with all 34 ornaments, but they are all embroidered and stuffed, and I just need to do the finishing touches on 24.’

‘I feel very confident that I will have finished all of them in time for Christmas. I will give my mom and my sister each a set of the 10 ornaments and keep a set for myself.

The four random extra ones will go to a dear friend of mine. Who knows, I might even be able to finish the two remaining stockings?! And while my stitches are not as beautiful as my mom’s, at least they are acceptable. I hope you get a kick out of such an amateur embroiderer finishing such an old, and kind of kitschy, project!’

Teresa, they may be kitschy, but they are absolutely charming! Your mom will love to see a project she started all those years ago finally completed. They will be well treasured for years to come. Oh, and by the way, we think your stitches are a lot more than just acceptable!

Have you stitched something from Christmas past you’re yet to share with us? Maybe you’ve just finished something for Christmas present? Or perhaps you’re partway through a project that will now have to be for Christmas future?!

Whether old or new, finished or only partway through, we’d love to see it! Email your festive stitching, along with a few words about your journey with needle and thread to news@inspirationsstudios.com