Christmas Crackers

Things have gone Christmas crackers in my little stitchscape world as I stitch up a storm of Christmas decorations ready for the various festive shows and events I am attending in November/December time. You can never start this too early, and I have plans to stitch even more things before these events, although only have about four weeks left until the next (big!) one.
These decorations are made in 10cm (4") embroidery hoops and I did make several of them last year, a couple of which still remain. As I am also teaching classes on these little beauties, I made several examples of layouts which I have now stitched, and then I discovered a little stash of hoops which I am also stitching up. In total I shall have about 20 finished pieces hopefully by the end of the week adding all of them together.

I am feeling particularly chuffed this evening as I have sat myself down today and finished two! The one pictured here which is my new favourite with it's scandi style bird print and bronze snowflakes, and also the similarly coloured one that is pictured in the top photo as unfinished. The lovely navy blue and bronze is an interesting colour choice for Christmas decorations but I think they look really modern, and I love the sweet little bird print on this fabric. The metallic bronze DMC thread is an exact match for the bronze on the fabric print and I am really pleased with how different they look as I'm hoping there will be something for everyone's Christmas style.

Metallic thread can be a nightmare to work with though! Even though I cut shorter lengths and try to be very smooth in the way I work with it, the threads get tangled up around each other or catch and stretch then split into the various different fibres that make up the thread composition. You end up with a fluffy mess at the end of each thread length, but as long as none of this appears on the front- and you cover up the back- no one will know!

These are the ones from this year's little collection so far (apart from this evening's final finish) and I really like the variety of colours. It turns out that I have a lot more Christmas themed fabrics than I thought I did as all sorts of things turned up when I raided my stash. I have found more glittery, metallic yarns that I can use as well so I am having great fun adding sparkles to these pieces.
I was discussing them with someone the other day, saying how they are more whimsical pieces than any sort of landscape, but she assured me that the landscape element was still visible within them, and that many of them could still be deemed as a landscape with trees and foreground, with sparkly snow and flakes coming down and settling on the floor.

The basic structure and composition of them is the same in each one with four layers of fabric cut and stitched on top of each other. The focus for me here is how the colours of the layers work together, and I occasionally fussy-cut around a particular aspect of the fabric pattern, such as a big snowflake or Christmas tree which then also enhances the piece and creatures an area of interest.

Once the stitching on the front is down, the pieces are reset in their hoops and the backs drawn up with circular running stitch. A circle of felt is whip stitched to the drawn up fabric at the back, leaving a lovely neat finish ready for displaying.
I have four left to finish in this little batch, two very red themed ones, one a more traditional green and red, and one a slightly more unusual muted green and reddish one (you can see what I mean in the top image). I shall see when I've finished them how I feel about stitching some more, but my fingers may need a break for a few days afterwards as my fingertips currently have holes in them!!