Tag teddy bear

Joy Bears

CraftyK Leave a comment

I pulled out my last vintage Christmas card kit. This one features two teddy bears setting up an outdoor Christmas tree. They are stringing on the lights and the plug is out in the snow on the ground.

This cute scene reminded me of the Cherished Teddies my sister and I used to buy my mom for just about every holiday from Hallmark. There was usually some new figurine that my mom wanted and my sister would take me to the store nearby to pick it up. Several years ago I made her a large teddy bear cross stitch kit that also looked like the bears from the figurines.

This little cross stitch had its challenges with the white on white stitching. I managed with minimal mistakes. I’m also not used to paper patterns anymore. With Pattern Keeper for my full coverage projects, I’ve been pretty spoiled.

I managed to take a before backstitching photo of this one. The backstitching was needed to really bring out the character of the scene. This didn’t take too long to stitch and was finished with plenty of time before I delivered it to my mom for Christmas.

Stitching

Started: November 23, 2024

Finished: December 5, 2024

Stitching time: 11.75 hours

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Wrapping Bear

CraftyK 2 Comments

This cross stitch pattern is from a 1992 kit that was supposed to be made into an ornament. The design is by Celia Lange.

This pattern is riddled with 1/4 and technically 3/4 stitches. Since I knew there was so much backstitching I have learned that skipping the 3/4 stitches is better if backstitching is going through it.

Instead of following the pattern completely, I used quarter and whole stitches. This helped guide where the backstitching was going and not overwhelm the pattern.

This kit came with 18 count fabric which made it more challenging than most. It took several long breaks between stitching sessions to get this one done due to all the quarter stitches.

To finish this one I found simple paper in one of the Christmas paper packs. There is green in the cross stitch and green dots on the paper. Since there is text stitched I didn’t use any stamps or writing, just the pattern.

The cross stitch is stabilized with interfacing fabric and mounted with mounting tape. The paper is mounted to the card based with double sided tape.

Stitching

Started: June 1

Finished: July 17

Stitching time: 5.25 hours

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Happy Birthday text in focus

Teddy bear

CraftyK Leave a comment

Birthday twins in the family are becoming more common. Not just the actual twins, nope, these are the new people marrying in and having babies. There’s just under 60 people in the family and there are 365 days a year. We have at least 5 overlapping birthdays already of non-twins. That just seems so crazy to me!

Anyway, this card didn’t take too terribly long to stitch. I actually outlined the letters as I went since I wanted the thin parts to be thicker, so two threads across the board on that one.

The bear I wanted to show a before/after of the stitching vs stitching with backstitching .

teddy in progress

Here’s my wonderful cell phone photo of the bear before I got out the black thread for it. It’s always fun to see the before and after on these and the difference it makes.

side angle right

The assembly of the card didn’t go as I’d hoped. It was a bit like the Hippo I made earlier this year. The paper is the thinner I guess regular printer paper weight and doesn’t handle being cut and taped down over the fabric very well.

It seems to go ok until the bottom and I get a bubble that turns into a pronounced crease. Other than that I like how this card turned out.

Stitching

Started: July 16th
Finished: July 20th

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teddy card full front