The last time I looked on the Victoria Sampler website, the number of chart booklets in Thea Dueck’s Gingerbread Village series was four, plus some ‘smalls’ as extra projects in the booklets for the four buildings:
These are all available as chart pack booklets. I’ve made the Gingerbread Stitching House etui (on the far left of the picture), and now I’m making the Candy Cane Cottage (in the centre). I’ve got the chart booklets for the tree and the church in my stash. But now what has Thea done?! While I wasn’t looking, she has added several more items to the village, and I’m just going to have to get them! Well, most of them. See below……..
The first one which grabbed my attention was the Gingerbread Needlework Shop. This is made up as a box, with a lid that comes off so that you can store stitchy things inside.
Then there’s the Gingerbread Bakery. This is an interesting shape, and I’m not sure if I want to make this one next after the Candy Cane Cottage, or the Needlework Shop. Both look really nice.
Then there’s THIS. A ‘Retreat Cottage’. At the moment, it’s only available if you go on a stitching retreat with Thea, but it should be released as a chart booklet next year (2016), apparently. I love the look of this one.
There is also this Gingerbread Quilt Shop. I’m undecided about this one at the moment. It’s the latest one to come out (autumn 2015). I love the patterns on the building, but I think that the building itself is rather ugly. Maybe I could adapt the design to make the roof more ‘normal looking’, somehow? I’ll have to think about it.
But then there’s also THIS. Not sure about this one at all. OK- it’s a building, but it’s a Halloween building, and I don’t feel that it sits well with the rest of the Gingerbread Village buildings in the slightest. As a project in its own right it would be great. I know that Halloween-themed things are very popular in the US, but I’m English and they leave me cold, so I won’t be buying this one.
So, finally, here is a view of all of the Gingerbread Village buildings in Thea’s range so far – this image is the header for the Victoria Sampler Facebook page. Don’t these all look wonderful as a group together?
Except maybe not the ‘cuckoo’ of the Halloween house…….. What do you think?
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Janet Granger's Blog 
I agree with you! While I like Halloween, that particular building does not blend with the other lovely Christmas buildings…my favourites are the needlework shop and the bakery. What a beautiful collection they will be when displayed all together!
My favorite is the pyramid. I’ve seen it stitched and all the little details are adorable.
I am eager to start this project — hate to make it wait.
I (an American) don’t care so much for Halloween anymore, either! It used to be just fun-for-kids, but . . . . on the other hand, adapted properly, the Halloween house would make a GREAT old coaching-inn for the village, no?
The quilt shop does look odd, but that roof is actually not that uncommon in 19th-century America; the idea was maximum headroom in the attic with wind-deflection where you really needed it . . . our prairies are still known for wind-storms, and they do tend to pick a direction and come always from that direction..
Thanks for the explanation about US buildings – I did wonder if it was a typical building style for America that I was maybe just unfamiliar with. I’m just used to buildings having pitched roofs! With a bit of adjustment, I think I’d be able to adapt the Quilt Shop design to something I’d like to make, but I’m still not sure about that Halloween House!
They all look great but I agree with the Halloween one. It just doesn’t belong it should have its own village.
Yes, it’s own village would be better, as it’s a good design, but it just doesn’t ‘sit right’ with the other ones.
Love to have the church pattern
It’s available from Victoria Sampler’s Canadian site: http://www.victoriasampler.com/Catalogue/VS_Samplers/p0129_GingerbreadChurch.aspx
or Sew and So in the UK: http://www.sewandso.co.uk/product/129-gingerbread-church-chart/991881
The gingerbread series
Does it bother anyone else that the buildings are not designed in proportion to each other? I love the series but the church door is half the size of the needleworks store. Does anyone know if changing the linen count or doing a simple upsize/downsize (like four stitches for every listed stitch) could adjust them to be more evenly proportioned?
Wendy, from your experience, if I were to attempt this, would you recommend making the church and others bigger or the stitch building smaller?
It doesn’t bother me personally, as it just adds to the ‘whimsical’ nature of the style of the gingerbread village, but I do see what you mean. I suppose you could adjust the size a bit by using different fabric counts, but then you might have to try to get the same fabric colour in different counts, and that’s not easy.
Just my persnickety-ness, I guess! 😉