I’ve managed a few finishes this week, one of them being my Christmas rose humbug. I started this ages ago as it’s been my stitching on the go project so it’s a lucky coincidence that I’ve managed to finish it in time for ‘Christmas in July’. It’s a design by Faby Reilly, she has lots of very pretty humbug designs on her website.

The finished cross-stitch is a rectangular design with a back-stitch edge which is used to stitch it together.

The linen is a scrap I found in my linen drawer and it’s not the best, it’s fairly thin so I cut a piece of iron-on cotton interfacing to just fit within the back-stitch outline. It’s both given it a bit of body and made it more opaque.

To make it into a humbug shape the two short sides are stitched together, using whip-stitch through the back-stitch. The top edges with the smaller roses are then stitched together making a square pocket with one open side. The bottom edge is then stitched so the centre line of the large rose and the seam with a bow on it come together, resulting in a humbug shape. Mathematically I believe it’s called a tetrahedron! …a pyramid!

I threaded some fine gold tape through the top to make a hanger and my Christmas decoration was finished…though I am tempted to put a bead in the centre of the bow where it doesn’t quite meet!

I’ve now got a little collection of Christmas humbugs to hang on my tree this year…

Kathy is doing ‘Christmas in July’ on her blog, do follow the link to see what everyone else is stitching.