It’s Christmas in the dollhouse!

Here’s a short slideshow I made this week, showing some dollhouse scenes with Christmas-themed miniature needlepoint from my range of kits, to get you in the mood for the festive season:

These are great fun to stitch (they are far easier to make than they look!). If you can cross stitch, you can make these  🙂   …and they make great Christmas gifts, too.

The carpets are to be stitched on 18 count canvas, and the smaller items have either 32 count evenweave fabric, or 32 or 40 count silk gauze, depending on the type of kit, so there is something for every ability level.

Have a look at  my website to see the full range of over 280 kits for 1:12 dollhouses, and choose something cute and small to stitch!

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Are you interested in doll’s houses and stitching? Then why not visit my website, where you can buy doll’s house needlepoint kits to make all kinds of soft furnishings for one-twelfth scale dollhouses. There are over 280 kits to choose from, plus chart packs, fabric project packs, tutorials, and lots of eye candy to inspire you! Kits are available on 18 and 22 count canvas, 28 and 32 count evenweave, and 32 and 40 count silk gauze, so there’s something for everyone – from beginners to experts.

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Dollhouse needlepoint gift ideas for Christmas

For those of you who love your doll’s houses, as well as loving to do stitching, here are a few ideas from my range of dollhouse needlepoint kits…

Maybe you don’t know what to get the friends and family in your life who love their doll’s houses and their embroidery? Or you want to give Santa a bit of a clue about what *you’d* like?! Here’s a few ideas to make your decisions just that bit easier….

How about a matching Pole screen and Firescreen set, like these two (‘Spring Flowers’ and ‘Summer Roses’), below? Each kit is available separately, but together they really add something special. Both are to be stitched on silk gauze – the Firescreen kits (on 32 count gauze) are £20.95 each, and the Pole screen kits (some on 40 and some on 32 count gauze, depending on the design) are £19.95 each. Both types of kit contain everything you need, including the metal frame kit or wooden pole kit.

Sampler kits make good stocking fillers, at only £9.95. There are 12 designs to choose from, on 28 or 32 count evenweave, and each kit already contains the wooden frame, as well as all other materials.

Teacosy kits (on 32 count silk gauze, at  £13.95), Tray cloth kits (on 32 count silk gauze, at £11.95) and Cushion kits (on 22 count canvas, at £4.95) make great stocking fillers!

For a gift for a more experienced stitcher, this Needlework stand kit on 40 count silk gauze (£20.95) would be good – there are six designs to choose from. This one is called ‘Larkspur and Roses’.

This is just a fraction of my range of over 280 miniature needlepoint kits – there are loads more to choose from on my website.

Postage & packing is £1.75 for UK orders (£3.95 overseas) up to £45 order value. Orders over £45 are sent post free, worldwide.

Here are the latest dates to order by if you need your parcel to arrive in time for Christmas, both within the UK and Overseas. If you order on or before these dates, I can get your parcel in the post within 24 hours, so that you receive it in time for Christmas, as follows:

Friday 1st December    Africa, Middle East
Monday 4th December    Asia, Far East (including Japan)
Thursday 7th December    Australia, New Zealand
Friday 8th December USA and Canada
Monday 11th December   Europe
Tuesday 19th December  UK

So, visit the website now, to solve all your mini-stitching gift-buying problems!  🙂

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Are you interested in doll’s houses and stitching? Then why not visit my website, where you can buy doll’s house needlepoint kits to make all kinds of soft furnishings for one-twelfth scale dollhouses. There are over 280 kits to choose from, plus chart packs, fabric project packs, tutorials, and lots of eye candy to inspire you! Kits are available on 18 and 22 count canvas, 28 and 32 count evenweave, and 32 and 40 count silk gauze, so there’s something for everyone – from beginners to experts.

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Autumn Quakers 8: how to mount cross stitch on a quilt hanger

I’m just about to complete this gorgeous cross stitch sampler called ‘Autumn Quakers’ by Rosewood Manor, which I stitched from a chart booklet. As I explained in my previous post, I had planned to frame it, but that didn’t work out, so instead I decided to hang it like a little quilt, from a cute metal hanger.

I first measured the width of the hanger’s dowel, allowing half an inch in from each end for where the hooks for the wooden dowel would be, and trimmed the spare fabric each side basing it on the fact that the finished width will be 15.5 inches and the total finished length will be 22.5 inches, so I cut the sampler fabric two inches bigger all round than these measurements (with more spare fabric at the top than the bottom, to allow for making a casing for the pole).

This is the untrimmed fabric, with the spare fabric temporarily folded under, so that I could see how wide to make it:

Then I cut a piece of heavy iron-on Vilene 15.5 x 22.5 inches, and ironed it onto the reverse of the cotton lining fabric that I’m using (it’s actually cut from an old sheet!). I decided not to iron the Vilene onto the reverse of the actual stitching, as I felt that it would be too bumpy a surface to stick properly. Then I trimmed the cotton fabric away from the edges, so that the Vilene and the cotton fabric were exactly the same size.

Then I placed the trimmed sampler and the cotton/Vilene piece, wrong sides together, and folded the extra linen border of the sampler over the edges of the cotton/Vilene piece, folding it under again to make a hem on three sides, leaving the top edge free for now. This took ages, as I kept pinning the sampler unevenly onto the backing fabric, but eventually I managed it!

This is the sampler with the three sides pinned and ready to hem with slip stitch.

The top edge was hemmed with a generous hem, as the wooden pole has quite a large wooden bead on each end of the pole, so I had to allow enough space to be able to feed the whole thing through the casing once I’d slip stitched the hem.

Once all four sides had been hemmed, I ironed it again, over a towel, from the reverse (quite cool, so that the glue of the Vilene didn’t melt and cause the cotton/Vilene piece to separate).

This is Autumn Quakers now that it is completely finished – I’m really pleased with it, now that I’ve solved the problem of how to finish it!

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Are you interested in doll’s houses and stitching? Then why not visit my website, where you can buy doll’s house needlepoint kits to make all kinds of soft furnishings for one-twelfth scale dollhouses. There are over 280 kits to choose from, plus chart packs, fabric project packs, tutorials, and lots of eye candy to inspire you! Kits are available on 18 and 22 count canvas, 28 and 32 count evenweave, and 32 and 40 count silk gauze, so there’s something for everyone – from beginners to experts.

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Autumn Quakers 7: the stitching is finished!!

I’m trying to ‘clear the decks’ a bit at the moment, as I’ve got several stitching projects on the go that are almost finished. I feel that I want to get stuff finished so that when I start the Carolyn Pearce Strawberry Fayre heart etui after Christmas for the stitchalong, I’ll be able to focus just on that project for a while, without the others ‘calling’ to me!

This country-style sampler by Rosewood Manor is one of those – it’s called Autumn Quakers, and I’ve been doing it occasionally for nearly two years. It’s one of those projects that is very good for when I’m travelling, as I have been stitching it ‘in the hand’, without a frame of any kind, which makes it very portable. Also, it doesn’t use many colours – but it’s beautiful, just the same  🙂

This is where I’d got up to the last time I blogged about my progress:

A couple of weeks ago, I finished it!

Isn’t it lovely?

So, last week I went shopping for a frame for it. I bought what I thought was a bargain, in Wilkinsons – £8.99 for a 16 x 20 inch walnut wood effect frame. It looks really realistic.

Unfortunately, there’s a problem with me using it for framing this sampler. The hardboard backing, even with the glass removed from the frame, takes up so much of the space in the rebate that I don’t think I’ll be able to get the stitching, once it’s mounted, in the rebate space – it’s almost flush with the back surface of the frame surround already.

So, I did a bit of Googling, and decided to get a small quilt hanger to display the sampler on instead. I sent off to The Homespun Loft , and got this lovely parcel by return – a very cute way to gift wrap a stitching goodie!

This is the quilt hanger – it’s made to look like a kind of weathered metal, with a wooden dowel to fix the quilt to (or, in my case, a sampler!).

The Homepsun Loft must have sold me the last one they had, as it isn’t shown on their website any more, but they are also available from The Cotton Patch in Birmingham for £18.95.

Now I just need to line the sampler, and attach it to the hanger.

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Are you interested in doll’s houses and stitching? Then why not visit my website, where you can buy doll’s house needlepoint kits to make all kinds of soft furnishings for one-twelfth scale dollhouses. There are over 280 kits to choose from, plus chart packs, fabric project packs, tutorials, and lots of eye candy to inspire you! Kits are available on 18 and 22 count canvas, 28 and 32 count evenweave, and 32 and 40 count silk gauze, so there’s something for everyone – from beginners to experts.

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