Cross Stitch Christmas Cards

Another late post! On Saturday 30th October, I put the finishing touches to the cross stitch Christmas cards that were a freebie from the Cross Stitcher magazine.

I did change a few things when stitching. Primarily this was to use some sparkly threads for some of the back stitching. I used a mixture of DMC Light Effects in gold, silver and multi-coloured and some red metallic Kreinik thread I treated myself to when we visited The Work Box shop in Norwich. I also sewed the sequins in place using some tiny seed beads rather than sticking the sequins.

I didn't find the DMC Light Effects thread to be very easy to work with. When you cut the thread, the individual threads that make it up start to unravel which makes it quite dificult to thread on the needle. Also, when you are working it, the thread breaks where it is passing through the needle requiring you to trim the thread whilst working with it. Although this was manageable for small amounts of back stitching, I don't think I'd like to use it for large areas of cross stitching. By comparison, the Kreinik thread was lovely to work with. Nevertheless, perhaps it's a case of, you get what you pay for! The Kreinik thread was much more expensive than the DMC Light Effects thread.

Mind you, I should have had a look on the Internet for advice! On the DMC site, there's information about the best way of using their thread, so I will have another go with another project and see how I get on. The sparkly effect the thread produces is well worth any extra effort. As an added thought, I wonder what it might look like couched down to cover an area?