Book Review – Just CrossStitch Christmas Ornaments

Celebrate the most wonderful time of the year with 70+ patterns featuring our favorite designers. Through 9 festive chapters, this issue covers all styles and skill levels to make ornaments you’ll love to gift or display!

Jingle all the way! A simple pattern with a complex design, the Jingle Bells ornament features phrases from classic Christmas carols stitched with vibrant colors in the shape of a ringing bell. The bright red, green and gold are sure to help you ring in the new year!
Tender and mild. Capture the essence of a cathedral window in a gorgeous ornament. The Mary & Jesus Stained Glass pattern showcases the simple design of the mother and child in rich, electric blue that stands out from the black background.
A touch of elegance for your tree! Designed by the famous needle artist Giulia Manfredini, A Christmas Dress is a lovely design worked with full cross stitches and backstitches on sparkling fabric. Detailed finishing instructions will have you completing it before your tree is up!

Plus, you won’t want to miss our bonus Recipes & Memories chapter, packed full of holiday memories and favorite recipes from our featured designers. Download (or subscribe!) today!

Looking for more Christmas Cross Stitch patterns? Check these out on Etsy.

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Unique St. Patrick's Day Cross Stitch Patterns

I recently came across a post from Lord Libidan talking about embroidery floss packs and whether it’s worth the money to buy a set of threads all at once instead of one skein at a time.

With the closure of Joann some people were buying these bundles as a way to build their stash/stockpile if they didn’t have another place to buy locally. I did the same thing when I first started cross stitching again after a break of many years, because I wanted to get a bunch of colors all at once without the overwhelming job of picking colors from the wall of thread when I didn’t have a particular project in mind.

And I think for this purpose buying a package with colors you like or some basic/popular colors is probably a good idea and relatively cost effective.

My Joann didn’t have any floss packs when it was closing (in fact it didn’t have cross stitch floss at all for a month or more, then suddenly go a bunch about a week before closing) but I might have bought one just to have the variety if they had been available.

If Amazon is going to be your source for cross stitch supplies going forward, I think buying packs of cross stitch floss when the colors make sense is definitely going to be a better deal. As I write this a pack of 36 popular colors was running $39.50, or about $1.09 a skein. I used to pay 66 cents per skein at Joann, but buying a single skein of black floss on Amazon would run you $4.29.

Herrschners sells DMC floss for $1.05 per skein or less, but shipping isn’t free and you’ll have to buy a lot (or a lot of other things, too) to meet their minimums for free shipping when they offer it.

Check out the post on Lord Libidan for his thoughts and let me know where you are buying cross stitch floss now if you used to buy it at Joann.

[Photo via Herrschners]

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