Snowshoeing Santa

The one last gift I had to finish is now fully finished.  The night before last I got it mounted sticky board with a piece of batting between board and stitching.  I use the sticky side of the board to stick the batting in place and then when wrapping the edges to the back I used double-sided sticky tape.  I’ve had questions regarding if I lace my pieces – no, I use this same method on small and larger framed pieces.  This one I used the hot glue gun to attach it to the wood board, other times I have used Aleen’s glue.   Why the glue gun for this one? . Well, my large bottle of Aleen’s was hidden is why but it has since been located.

Rember these boards that I had previously shown which I had gotten from WonderWoodCrafted on Etsy?   I used the board on the far right with the slot in the top for this one – you can get all those shapes in various sizes so lots of options.  The board itself measures 4″ x7″.   The stitching I finished to 3″ x 5″.   I didn’t paint or put any other finish on the board.  The wood was pretty as it was and these have a short of wood-burned dark look around all the cut edges which I liked against the light wood.  I you are looking for thin (these are abou1/4″ thick boards) for mounting things on, I highly recommend this shop; I’ve been really pleased with the two orders I have placed with them and they have lots of options in multiple sizes for each shape and have been very quick to ship.

So last night I wanted to get it finished up and I added some mini chenille (boy is that stuff skinny compared to the regular chenille – about the width of fingering weight yarn but perfect for this)  from Dames of the Needles (Etsy) in Honey Whiskey color.  I added a piece of red gross grain to make a loop to hang it with.  But later when I was breaking into a cellophane bag of Christmas cookies my “chauffeur” had given me (she had stopped yesterday at our favorite German bakery and brought me a bag of good bread and some other goodies), the cookies (chocolate cover Peppernuts) had a little red satin bow twist-tied to the top of the bag and it was the perfect red so I added that to the bottom of the hanging loop.  Perfect!

So after that I decided to put away First Thanksgiving (which I have been stitching on all week) because I was drawn to start a new little small project.  I can’t show you an image because it’s just a free chart with no cover image,   I was watching MamaLovesYouGB Flossmas video for Dec. 16 and she showed some cute freebie charts of a santa in a sweater (colorwork looking sweater and beanie hat – along with is snowman friend in sweater).  So when I went to look at them on this site I found a different one with just the Santa head that I just needed to stitch.    The charts can be found at  https://gazette94.blogspot.com/

And if you scroll to the end of the Santa/snowman ones you will see just the headshot I’m stitching.  So I pulled fabric and threads that look similar to the colors in the chart and here’s my start.

The fabric is 14 ct Cyprus by Fiber on a Whim.  It’s a pretty gray/green and darker than it’s appearing here and I’m using two strands of floss – mostly pulled from my Victorian Motto floss stash except the face which is DMC.   I hope to finish this later today.  But for now I have to clean up the kitchen and clean out the fridge in preparation for a grocery delivery.   The record high temps of two days ago (68) are now definitely gone and it’s in the 20s but at least there’s some sunshine.  I may actually get that pine bough garland put up around the outside of my door today.