A Wooly Christmas Banner

Last year Teri and I (Kara) taught a year-long wool program called the Stitching Society at our local quilt shop. We were trying to come up with ideas for more uses for the program's patterns, so I made a Christmas banner with a few of the holiday designs. Making a banner had been on my to-do list for some time, so this was a great opportunity to check it off. 

I decided to re-purpose a piece of light tan wool fabric that I had picked up at a thrift store for the background. Once I had the six Christmas images chosen, I chose the fabrics, threads, and beads. All the embroidery was done with perle cotton in varying sizes (#5, #8, and #12).

Wreath

The first pattern I chose to do was the wreath, as I knew it would be a quick one to do.  

This simple design is made up of little fly stitches and red seed beads

 Poinsettia

I had a perfect red wool to use for the petals and a lovely rose wool for the center 

I used the fly stitch again along with French knots for the center

Mistletoe

I chose to use ribbon for the bow instead of wool  

More fly stitches for the leaves, beads for the berries, and a #5 perle cotton, stem-stitched branch.

Holly & Swirls

I love this unique design.

Fly stitch again for the leaves (a great stitch for leaf veins) and the spiral trellis stitch for the berries

Christmas Tree

This green herringbone wool was perfect for the tree.

Stem stitch and lazy daisies make up the branches, and French knots became the ornaments.

Pine Bough

This is another simple but beautiful design. 

Again, I used the #5 perle for the branches and the spiral trellis stitch for the berries.

Once all the designs were stitched, I decided to use a simple casing on the top, so I could thread a piece of twine through each one. This allows me some flexibility for hanging them.

This was a fun project to do and was a big hit with our class. It also fits in quite nicely with my woodland-style Christmas-decorating scheme. Hopefully you have had some opportunity in the last few months to do some holiday-themed stitching.  Feel free to share with us—we'd love to be inspired by your work. Happy holidays!