Ok, you are stuck at home and you have no stitching. (Ok, let's be realistic, you have plenty but nothing really is whispering "Stitch me" to you.) You can't go to your favorite shop to pick out something new and you don't really want to spend much money anyway. So, what do you do?
Etsy is the answer! You rummage around Etsy and you find something like this TEW Designs ornament for $18 with free shipping.
https://www.etsy.com/listing/778087076/hand-painted-needlepoint-canvas-3-round?ref=shop_home_active_9&frs=1
It's on 13 count and is only three inches across so you won't spend a lot of time on this. (You do have all those other canvases stashed under your bed, anyway.) You can probably find enough threads in your stash to work it up, too. You'll need red, green, white and gold. Don't have any green? Substitute navy! No gold? Try yellow or if you are a fan of autumn colors, change gold to orange and use ecru for the white areas. You might even use brown on the green paint.
You can tent stitch the whole thing. Or you can run wild and do something fancier. Tent stitch everything except the tiny single single dots of red, white and gold. Bead those with pearls, and gold and ruby red beads. Don't like beading or don't have the right colors? Use a tiny French knot or a cross stitch in a fatter than normal thread so it sticks up a bit and gives you a little jewel-like bump.
Play with texture. Use perle cotton for the white areas, Very Velvet for the red, metallic for the gold and something that is a silk blend or has a metallic woven in for the green.
Get your stitching friends to all purchase one of these (there are many colors and patterns) and have a stitch-a-thon. If you don't have any red threads for yours, trade blue threads to your stitching buddy for the red you need so he or she can do the ornament that is purple, blue and green. You can cheer each other on and have fun mailing threads back and forth to each other from your stashes.
https://www.etsy.com/shop/TEWDesigns?ref=simple-shop-header-name&listing_id=778087076
We can make our own fun rather cheaply.
Written by Jane/Chilly Hollow
Blogging at http://chillyhollownp.blogspot.com
and at http://chstitchguides.blogspot.com
© Copyright April 10, 2020 Jane M. Wood. All rights reserved.
