a christmas needlepoint

Despite all my efforts to be a “go-with-the-flow” kind of person, I love to make rules and conditions for myself that I invariably break and then feel disappointed. Hopeless, I know!

So one of this year’s rules is to make at least one needlepoint, one cross stitch and one embroidered felt decoration for both Christmas and Halloween. Any extra things that are made - pillowcases, table runners, candles etc. - will be cause for great glee, but the former three things just must be done!

I used to be really good at this - some years, I churned out 10 - 15 cross stitched decorations for the tree! - but as my interests have increased, productivity has decreased :-0

Last night, I started on the Christmas needlepoint project (wrong way around I know, but the Halloween pattern hasn’t arrived yet - and I couldn’t possibly use one of the many I have already collected!). I bought a new piece of canvas, and a selection of browns and greens for the trees and reindeers, but every other strand of yarn must come from one of the many lid-popping boxes of DMC and Appleton wools that hide under all the beds, tables, bottom shelves of bookcases, and backs of wardobes in the Boot house. Except the background colour - of course!

I chose this pattern - just adore the naive, sampler look of the village and Father Christmas - from a company I’ve not come across before, NotForgotten Farm. Since typing this, I’ve visited their website and whilst the initial look is sweet - and  I love their salute at the bottom of the home page,  “blessed be and in goode spirits stay” -  honestly, if you want to look at their glorious patterns check out here instead.  Maybe I’ve gone to the wrong webpage?  I cannot find a list of their patterns or pictures on their website but 123stitch have a very accessible list.

Now here’s the thing - Notforgotten Farm has beautiful patterns - the designer has produced a truly lovely naive, simple, old fashioned style that so lends itself to both cross stitch and needlepoint and I heartily recommend them - but, there needs to be an improvement on the technical production side of things.  The chart is so teeny-tiny small, the symbols so illegible, the text so little and poorly reproduced that stitching from this pattern - a half printed sheet of A4 - is darned hard work.

As I said, I love the designs so I will definitely buy more, but gosh, they need to invest a bit more into  pattern printing down at the farm - a novice or inexperienced stitcher would be terminally put off.

So here’s where I’m at after just a few hours - neat huh! Hey!  This isn’t the most up to date photo - I’ve actually finished the blue house, added the branches to the tree on its left and finished my first reindeer.  I can’t believe I didn’t take a photo - I’m clearly out of practice!

I’m aiming to have all the detail finished by the time Julian returns from India - and then it will just be fill, fill, fill for the background.  Fill is soooo good - you just pop on your favourite film or audio book and stitch away in a trance for hours.  Now, I would cheerfully forgo said film or book for the company of a friend, but I have to confess, the odd occasions when I have pulled out some needlepoint, they look at me as if I’m being immensely disrespectful.  Such a shame when that time could be so valuably used for listening, talking AND stitching.

Oh!  And I’m going to change the wording - I shall include “And away they all flew, like the down of a thistle”  I just adore The Night Before Christmas - especially Meryl Streep’s reading of it on the wonderful Rabbit Ears production.

As I stitch this scene, I am dreaming of the winter scenes as described by Laura Ingalls Wilder in These Happy Golden Years, when Laura was teaching out on the prairie and staying with the horrible Brewster family.  This is how I imagine it would have looked as Almanzo drove her home each Sunday afternoon in the bitter cold and snow.  I think I will use a mid grey for the background (the bone white says Fargo carpark instead of Ingall’s prairie!) - that way the snow around the houses will stand out, as will the stars in the sky.  I want to create a chilly look - one that makes you think of settling down for that long winter nap, sugar plums and smoky wreaths -  one that will sit prettily against the village quilt.

And here’s a couple of detail shots of the back of the needlepoint.  When I stitch blocks of one colour, I always try to stitch on a diagonal line - where the stitches fit into each other neatly like brickwork - it gives a more elegant and smoother finish to the front of the needlepoint with no discernible lines, and a neat basketweave back.

if you stitch in straight lines you can see the direction you have taken, ie. vertical or horizontal, and I think this distracts from the picture.

Also, I always “take the long way” when stitching straight lines.  That is, if I am stitching from the right of the canvas to the left, I make the stitch from the left to the right, creating a long diagonal stitch on the back as opposed to a straight up and down, or side to side stitch on the back.  This fills the front of the stitch beautifully - “taking the short way” makes the stitches look mincy and can create little gaps between them.

Mmmm…. I love wool needlepoint.