I always have a little stitching project in my handbag for those opportune moments when you can fill some time stitching. I’ll stitch anywhere, waiting rooms, bus station, tea-shops, broken down trains…I usually arrive at work about half an hour early, so I sit in the coffee room and stitch.

These projects need to be small and easily picked up, I find cross-stitch easier than free embroidery for this as I know exactly what threads I will need. Over the last few months I’ve been stitching a Faby Reilly design I bought ages ago, it’s another Christmas humbug decoration, I’ve made three humbugs before, two Christmas ones and the poppy one.

Humbug refers to the shape of the finished decoration. Here in the UK we have a mint sweet called a humbug and it is this shape. It’s basically four triangles.

I’ve just finished the cross-stitch design. I put it through the washing machine as it was looking a little grubby, pressed it and now I just need to make it into a humbug.

You can see how the design will (hopefully!) match up when it’s stitched together, there’s half a bow either side and the smaller roses will also meet up. I might put some light interfacing behind as its quite a thin weave linen, it was a scrap I found in my linen box but it hasn’t been great to work on, if I find any more in my stash I won’t be using it for cross-stitch.

Hopefully I’ll be able to post the finished Christmas decoration soon.

I’ll try and post more about what I’m stitching on the go, rather than just give final updates, maybe once a fortnight…hopefully once the decorating is finally finished I’ll be able to get back to posting (and sewing) a bit more regularly.