Cross-stitch candle

While I was thinking about my next, and final, set of Christmas card designs for this year, I used the last of the cross stitch die cuts and stitched a traditional Christmas candle.

The design, like the one for the snowman card, comes from Marianne Designs pattern library. I had printed out the PDF but it wasn’t very obvious that the greenery was two different colours so I had to go back to the online version to see it more clearly. And looking at it again now, I realise that the snowman’s scarf is stitched in two different colours of blue on their pattern — they really should have picked colours with better contrast…

If I stitch this candle design again I think I will make a couple of small tweaks: a couple of stitches of a different colour at the base of the candle flame and, maybe, one column of slightly darker stitches on the left edge of the candle to hint at the round shape.

Supplies:

• pattern:
  Marianne Designs – cross stitch patterns 1 (pdf)
• dies:
  Marianne Designs – CR1454
• embellishments:
  green ribbon
• paper and card:
  white card
  green mirri card
  Papermill Direct – ivory pearlised
  Papermill Direct – charcoal black pure sparkle card blanks
• miscellaneous:
  embroidery floss