Ornament of the Month – January

This month’s ornament is Peace Tree by M Designs, from the 2004 JCS ornament issue.

Peace Tree from M Designs

It is stitched on 28 count white evenweave (Lugana, I think?), using Threadworx in colour 1089 Bleeding Hearts (which I believe was a gift from Erica). The beads are leftovers from a Dimensions kit, but I’m not sure which one.

I cheated a little bit with this design. Generally speaking, I’m not overly thrilled with how a full cross stitch looks over one. In some fibres and colours it looks okay, but, to me, it can look crowded. So, for this design, I only did half stitches. But, because of how the letters curled around, I knew I could end up with weird looking lines if I wasn’t careful. So, for one half of the design, I did my half stitches like this / and for the other half I did them like this \. I think the results are wonderful. The tree looks graceful and light. I’m really looking forward to finishing it into an ornament.

That’s now three of my fourteen ornaments done. So far, so good! With February being short month, I’m tempted to do another easy ornament. But at this rate, I’ll have used up all the easy ones, and will have a problem if I ever have a busy month. So, I’m thinking I will pick something somewhere in the middle. Maybe Dragon Dreams’ You Are My Gift (2010) or Julia Lucas’ Home for the Holidays.

And, guess what? Still no new stash! Yay! Okay, I haven’t been to LNS this year, but there is always the Internet. 😉

How are your stitchy New Years’ resolutions coming along?