Christmas Cards, weaving your own.

Dec2

These are fun to make tho if you have a lot of people- Special people- on your list you might want to start a bit sooner than December 2!

But I’ll share a bit if what I’ve done here. You can take it and run with it on your own. You can use this same method for making cards for birthday, Easter or any other celebrations, of course. Or a pretty patch on an item of clothing.  Maybe pretty patches like we used to make back in the day, once this ugly fad for torn up jeans fades! You can reclaim these garments!

But I did this on the 4″ Multi loom. First you need a graft to fit your loom. I did this for you so you can just print these out and design away! The red dot is the center of the loom to help place your design so that it will fit. You want at least one stitch as a border, more is better, especially of you plan to attach these to other squares. I made a baby blanket using this and some cute little animal pictures. I also added the one with the centered circle in case you ae doing round ornament type projects.

Here’s a couple  simple charts you can start with to give you an idea how to go about this. Penguin is worked on a white background, the gray squares here should be black, the snowman needs a color to let him stand out. I just suggest weaving the square with some pale aqua, an icy color then stitching the white for his body. You can do it the other way if you want, stitching the back ground to outline  him. You can also use a running stich to kind of outline him. I arbitrarily added a bit of bright pink in his scarf but I have to say, it can and should be done better, You decide!

You can work these with a cross stitch, even a single ‘cross’ might work,  like needle point. This will depend on the size of yarn you are using. You want a solid coverage without distorting the pattern. When you are looking for patterns search Free Cross stitch Christmas patterns. Also look at the same but needlepoint. Like this one. You can work any of these either way, just be sure to coordinate your yarn sizes.

  

I worked the little penguin using the half cross, or needle point stitch. I think it turned out okay except some of my colors are not the best choices but what I had to work with. His feet and beak should have been a darker yellow, more ‘school bus’, and my green is a bit too dark. I worked little French knots for his berries and I like that. I think I may do a bit of detailing on this one. He also looks very sad, It’s his eyes, not sure how to cheer him up but I’ll make a few sketches and see what I can work out. Since there is a limited number of squares here details are a little difficult to fit in. I also worked the stitches in his white parts. I was thinking about letting the back ground white do it, but I thought that looked too unfinished.
Hoping someone else will work him and share!

Here’s some I have done, I didn’t keep track of them all, tho, too bad. If you are unfamiliar with embroidery There are lots of instruction on line, I expect. Also Gabi had a WAL on the subject some time ago and she may still have links to that information. Here’s the one I made in that WAL & c couple Xmas squares. The gnome is  on the 4×6″.

       

This was a mug rug for my MIL. In case yo can figure out my symbolism its the sun coming up in the coffee cup.

These were for my baby blanket, (except the last one) which I also can’t find a picture of.

Well, I hope you get some inspiration out of this post and will let me know what you make, I always love to see your projects! Let me know, too if something is unclear more info is needed.

 

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