Prairie Santas

Well, now I've also got to show you some of my Prairie Schooler santas I've stitched over the years. They are among my favorite patterns to stitch; they have a limited thread palette and use simple stitches, yet the designs are rather elegant in their simplicity.

Just like a lot of you, I have a nice stash of these little santa patterns. And I love to take them out and shuffle thru them. I never have enough time to get them all stitched, but hey, hope springs eternal, doesn't it? I figure I'll get them all stitched EVENTUALLY.....

And as you can see, I like to stitch them on the brown 18 ct. mono canvas, using 3-4 ply of DMC floss. I use the old Tent or Basketweave Stitch, instead of cross stitches, so I can whip these out a little faster...

And I like the brown background showing thru... it looks rustic and old-fashioned to me...

And this year I decided to get the whole series of Prairie Schooler's 12 Days of Christmas designs(see the first one, below) because I just loved the simple images. I've only worked a few of them, but again, they're fun to stitch because the thread and color palette is limited and easy to stitch up.

Again, I'm stitching all of these with the basic Tent Stitch or Basketweave Stitch, instead of cross stitches...and I'm using sandstone canvas instead of brown.


Although, in this series I've decided to add a few other simple needlepoint stitches to add some extra dimension to them (see the pears? and Santa's pants?)...plus I've added gold beads on Santa's coat, just to add a little more sparkle. It's fun to embellish a cross stitch design with very simple needlepoint stitches...and there are so many easy ones to choose from. Give it a try!

I've been working these designs on little pieces of canvas, but it occurs to me now -how am I going to finish all of them? I originally bought the pattern thinking I would only stitch a few of the santas...but now I want to stitch them ALL. Maybe I should stitch the whole 12 Days of Christmas on one big piece of canvas, so they're all together. Ooohhh, wouldn't THAT would be something to see! Hmmmmm.....I'll have to give that some more thought!