Gingerbread Stitching House 1: getting started

This is my latest project –  I fancied doing some cross stitch, as I hadn’t done any for a while, and I’ve had the series of charts of these gingerbread buildings from Victoria Sampler in Canada for over a year in my stash. (If you’re in the UK, get the charts from Sew and So, and save hugely on postage costs, by the way!). They are sold as items to be used as table decorations at Christmas, but I plan to display them all year round (once they’re done, of course, which may take a while…..). At this time of year, it’s so tempting to do something festive and fun!

I am making the little house on the far left, to start with. The biscornu in front of it is part of the chart pack as well.

I decided to make the little stitching house first, as it’s not just a 3D building, but an etui. The roof lifts off to show that the underside of the roof is for storing needles. The chart pack has instructions for a scissor keep and a pincushion biscornu, too.

I began by stitching the front of the house, which was nice to do as there are lots of little areas that can be completed in a single stitching session, and the little trims (the beads and buttons) make it interesting to do.

 

The fabric that is recommended in the instructions is Antique Almond, by Zweigart, but even though the chart pack was published fairly recently, that shade of fabric is already no longer produced. So, I bought  Zweigart’s ‘Cognac’ shade instead. It’s a lot darker and orangey, but I like it. I was a bit concerned that the brown shades of thread in the Victoria Sampler Accessory Pack might not show up properly on the darker fabric (i.e. for the gingerbread people), but they did.

 

 

The house front before the beads have been added

 

With beads, buttons and ribbon added

This is not just cross stitch – there are some interesting counted thread stitches incorporated, too, such as for the doorstep and door itself, to give textural interest.

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