I seem to be getting quite a bit of cross-stitch done at the moment, I’m self isolating for an operation just before Christmas, so I’m using my time productively! I usually cross-stitch during coffee breaks and tea breaks or when I’m cooking tea, being at home all the time means there’s a lot more coffee breaks!

Over the last couple of weeks I’ve stitched another cross-stitch for Christmas, as we’re nearly there I thought I should make it up straight away!

This is a free pattern from The Drawn Thread, it’s called First Snow. It’s quite quick to stitch with pine stitch for the leaves and smyrna crosses for the snow flakes, these are a basically a cross-stitch with a + over the top.

I didn’t take a photo when I first finished it, I started trying to work out how to mount it. I had a tree hanger which I wanted to use which I bought from Fabric Chicks on facebook last month. It was 6″ wide and the tree is only just over 2″ wide, so I needed to bunce it up a bit. I pulled out all my Christmas fabric and tried various combinations but nothing seemed to jump out at me. I remembered some white mini pom-pom trim I have, I had a rummage in my trims drawer and found it. It worked perfectly…

When I looked at my selection of Christmas fabrics I realised they were nearly all embellished with gold and next to the embroidery it just didn’t work. I was also surprised to see red worked better than green fabric, red picked out the birds whereas dark green just made the tree look drab. Having tried several combinations I remembered I had a pillarbox red bumbleberries fabric by Lewis and Irene which I bought for some blocks for quilts of Valour. I found it and tried it, it worked and with then simpler red next to it the red and gold fabrics were less overpowering. A length of red and white Christmas ribbon was just long enough to titivate the top and bottom too.

Having stitched the borders on I had to finish the back in some way. I decided to just hand stitch some red felt on the back, covering up all the raw edges. One issue I had with the red felt though was the slight tinge it gave to the cross-stitch linen through the plain fabric. To get round this I tacked a rectangle of dark green felt behind the linen which I think nicely enhances the soft green shade of the linen. I stitched it onto the hanger and the little white bow just finished it off.

I’ve already hung my mini Christmas tree in the dining room, well ‘hung’ is a slight misnomer as it’s blu-tacked to the wall, hence the fircone in the middle to hide the bluetac!