Light relief

A couple of weeks ago I spent most of an afternoon and early evening crawling on the living room floor between layers of the curtain I'm sewing for the living room.  The cats were quite perplexed and thought it best to steer clear!

So, as a bit of light relief from that and the Christmas madness, I've been making some Christmas decorations.

I rather like the magazine, Cross Stitcher, and although there are lots of designs I'm sure I'll never make, there are quite a few that I find quite tempting.  November's issue had a free gift - the materials to make a garland of stars/snowflakes.  In the pack were three red and white patterened card stars and three perforated card stars ready to embroider, red and white embroidery silks, red and white cord for stringing it all together and a needle.  According to the instructions, each star should take two hours to make, but I think I managed each one in a little over an hour.

Initially I intended to decorate our dresser with greenery, but as I didn't think I'd have the time to make a traditional garland, these seemed to be the perfect substitute.  However, I found some fairy lights for the dresser, so I've found somewhere else to hang these now.  They're very pretty and I really like the perforated card stars - although I tend to roll fabric around my fingers as I stitch so I had to be careful not to bend the card too much!  Unfortunately it doesn't seem possible to buy more of the perforated stars, but I've found instructions how to make your own. What do you think?


I'm so pleased with them I think I may try more of their Christmas designs.  I've gone back through old issues and found the free gifts and spent my quiet time over the Christmas break making them.  My DH is a bit confused why I'm making Christmas decorations when we'll be taking the tree down soon, but I'm enjoying myself. 

There are also some pretty Scandinavian inspired decorations in the December issue that may well fit some of the Framecraft accessories I've had from years (yes, more Ebay purchases!).