Santa Ornaments--Post 2 and a finish

Four ornaments almost stitched

This has been a great evening project. I don't stitch every night and some nights, I don't stitch but a thread or two. Still, it doesn't take too much time to see progress.

In the first photo, three of the four Santas are finished. The fourth is ready to have the outline stitching added. 

I waited to cut each Santa apart until I had stitched all six ornaments. This is the first time that I have stitched on plastic canvas. I liked stitching on the plastic canvas. The canvas would be a great project for the granddaughters as the canvas is easier to count the stitches than it is on Aida cloth. Thread tension is easier to achieve on the plastic canvas!

I liked that the Santas are different. I also liked that the ornaments are small. Each one is about two inches! I imagine that I will be gifting these to someone who has a tiny Christmas tree during the holiday. These would look great on her tree next year.

Six ornaments stitched

As I stitched, I tried to keep the back neat. I thought about adding a piece of felt to cover the back which would protect the stitches; but, I couldn't come up with a method to attach the felt. I didn't want to add glue. Had I left the outline stitching to the last, I could have outlined stitched adhering the felt to the ornament. It would have been tricky to find the holes in the plastic canvas using that method. In the end, I decided to leave the back exposed.

Finished Santas

It surprised me how much the outline stitching brought out the facial features and details of each ornament. When I put this project on my Finish-A-Long list last August, I thought that I would easily finish it by the end of September. I finished the cross stitching at the beginning of November. Then, all that remained was to cut each ornament out. . . .which I did last night. I attached the hangers this morning and now I have a FINISH!

This is a project that I might do again. I would need to purchase a piece of 14 count plastic canvas about 7 and 1/4 inches wide by 4 and1/2  inches tall. The hanger was a gold string of elastic about 33 inches long that I cut into 5 and 1/2 inch segments.

This was goal number six on my first quarter finish list. It is my first finish of the quarter! If you want to visit post one about this project, click here.