Victoria Sampler Candy Cane Cottage (Gingerbread Village series) 4: 2 long sides and base

This little Gingerbread Candy Cane Cottage from Thea Dueck of Victoria Sampler is proving to be a great little project to do – interesting stitches and beading, and really pretty, too!

I’m now up to the part where I am stitching the two long sides of the cottage. The snow is stitched first, and then the windows. This is the back of the cottage, as I’m just starting on one of the hardanger windows:

I then got a bit carried away, and didn’t take any more photos until I’d completed the second long side, and stitched on  all the embellishments! You’ll just have to imagine all the stages!!

The stitched model in the chart booklet for this cottage is not lined – it doesn’t have a base to it at all. I prefer to make mine with a base on it, so I counted out the number of threads along the short and long sides of the panels I’ve already completed, and stitched a rectangle to those dimensions, so that I can make a base that will fit.

This image above shows the base piece, once I had ironed the seam allowances down, and also ironed it at 45 degree angles across the corners. This will make it easier to mount on the cardboard stiffener that is needed when assembling it into a 3D house.

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Christmas-themed mini stitching for you to make

Christmas is great. Needlepoint is great. Doll’s houses are great. Combining all three must be even greater, right?

Here are some ideas for mini-stitching kits that you could either make yourself, in the run-up to Christmas, or buy to give as kits for loved ones. All these miniature needlepoint kits are available now on my website.

I love designing Christmassy doll’s house needlepoint. How about some of these to tempt you?

Firstly, some Christmas stockings. These are stitched on 40 count silk gauze, and when finished, they’re 1 1/4 inches high. They are £9.95 each, available from here.

Then there’s placemats (£14.95 for a kit to make four), a long table runner (£12.95), and a round table centre (£8.95) – all on 32 count silk gauze.

Then there’s Christmas tree mats (£20.95) on 32 count silk gauze, to stand your tree on.

There are also lots of little kits that make good stocking fillers, that aren’t Christmas-themed, but will make any doll’s house stitcher squeal with delight on Christmas morning!!

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Victoria Sampler Candy Cane Cottage (Gingerbread Village series) 3: the snowman side and roof

Here is my progress this week on the Gingerbread Candy Cane Cottage building by Thea Dueck of Victoria Sampler in Canada.

I’ve completed one of the ‘short ends’ of the cottage – now I’m starting on the other one. This side features a snowman, defined with some back stitch among the cross stitch.

The windows, as before, are hardanger, and will be lined later with yellow fabric to indicate light coming from inside the house. The beads and features buttons are what really make this little house so great to do, though – they really set it off.

The roof is stitched on a blue-grey evenweave fabric. The white ‘snow’ is stitched first.

Then the tiny ‘gingerbread’ buttons, and white star buttons, are attached.

The backstitch outlines for each piece are necessary, not just to define the edges, but they will also be needed in the assembly, when each piece is mounted onto card, and the backstitch edges laced together to hold the shape of the little house.

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Victoria Sampler Candy Cane Cottage (Gingerbread Village series) 2: finishing the tree side

Here’s my progress on the Gingerbread Village Candy Cane Cottage, designed by Thea Dueck from Victoria Sampler. The ground floor hardanger windows that I stitched last time have now been completed with the addition of the Dove’s Eye stitch in the top third of each window. They took a bit of practice, and grew progessively neater as I got used to doing the stitch!

This project uses lots of beads – far more than on the Gingerbread Stitching House, which I made last year. They are pearly white ones, and metallic red ones, size 11, I think. They really make the little house look very Christmassy.

The project pack that I bought along with the chart from Sew and So also included these lovely sequins, the star button, and other shades of seed beads for the decorations on the tree.

The windows will eventually be backed with coloured cotton fabric, to indicate light shining from within the house, but I will do that for all four sides, just before the final assembly of the building.

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