Welcome to the ‘Winter Splendour’ Stitch A Long
This Stitch A Long is taking place for 10 weeks on the Stitchdoodles blog – Starting Wednesday 12th January 2022 and finishing on Wednesday 16th March 2022.
Each Wednesday during the SAL – a new tutorial will be published on the blog with all the information you need to complete a part of the Winter Splendour Pattern.
If you are not familiar with a Stitchdoodles SAL and this is all new to you and you would like to join in, please go to this page to get all the information.
Welcome to Week 2
There are 2 blocks for you to stitch this week but no need to rush – take your time and enjoy the process.
Let’s start with…
The Bird with his winter home
You will need the following colours…
#3756, #433, #436, #3021, #310, #3822, #3866, #312, #820, #996, #834
Use 2 strands throughout unless stated otherwise.
Stitching the Bird Feeder…
#433: Brick Stitch the Wooden House
#3756: Star stitch the Snowflake and add French Knots to each spike.
#3756: Back Stitch around the outlines of the roof and then Chain stitch rows sloping down from the top to the bottom edge on each side.
Use the same colour to add a bit of snow on the opening of the hole at the front in straight stitch.
#436: Long stitch the 3 vertical lines and then long stitch the bottom edges of the roof and the entire edge at the bottom of the house.
To finish the feeder – #3021: Satin stitch the hanging rope.
Stitching the Bird…
Step 1… #996: Chain Stitch the larger feathers on the outstretched wing – don’t pull them too tight so they maintain the shape required. As you can see from the photo, I stitched 7 in total to fill the shape.
Step 2…
- #312: Chain Stitch the feathers on the smaller wing – to fill the space I stitched 3 long chain stitch.
- #312: Chain Stitch 2 feathers for the tail and then with #996 long stitch on each outer side.
- #312: Long stitch inside each of the chain stitch – on both wings and the tail.
Step 3…
- #3822: Use a filler stitch for the birds body – I chose brick stitch (no surprise there!) however split stitch, back stitch or long & short would all work just as well.
- #312: Back stitch around the body and head including the line that divides both.
- #3866: Straight stitch a small area inside the head where the eye is going to be.
Adding the small details…
#820: Long Stitch on the edge of the larger wing and in the middle of the tail – I have highlighted where these lines are stitched in white on the first photo to help you see them better.
Still with #820 – fill in the head. This is such a small area and you need to keep some of the white stitching you did previously visible for the eye detail. It might be easier if you back stitch around the white area that you want to keep for the eye and then fill in the remainder of the head outside of this with small split stitches.
#310 (1 strand): straight stitch the feet, straight stitch the beak and then stitch a French Knot for the eye.
Your beautiful bird is them complete!
To complete this block… #834: Back Stitch around the edge of the block to finish.
All done!
Next we are stitching the…
Fir Tree
You will need the following colours…
#934, #730, #3756, #840, #415
How to stitch…
It might not look like it, but this is incredibly simple to stitch. Each section is stitched individually and the colours are combined easily to make it look amazing but not have you tearing your hair out with frustration! Let’s give it a go…
Start by stitching the bottom section of the tree first…
We are going to combine 2 colours of green together in the needle to give the 2 tone effect:
Separate off 1 strand of a length of thread from each of these colours: #934 & #730 – pop these 2 strands together and thread them in your needle.
The section is filled with long straight vertical stitches from the top of that section to the bottom. Rather than start from left to right (or vice versa) – start by stitching a central line stitch and then fill out each side from there.
It helps to place a few long stitches across that section to act as directional aids and then fill inbetween these.
That way your stitches will flow around in a natural direction rather than them being at odd (and unnatural) angles.
The white arrows show you what I mean by this – place these stitches first and you can quickly see the angles will be a lot easier to work to by stitching inbetween these.
Here’s how that section looks when filled in as described.
Before moving on to the next section – stitch the snowy edges otherwise the whole tree will become a blur and you won’t be able to see where the branches are meant to be.
#3756: straight long stitch the snow edges to the branches – they can be stitched into and over the green to keep it natural.
In exactly the same way as you stitched the first section, stitch and fill in the next section.
When bringing your stitches to the white edges – make sure you go under them not over so you don’t lose there definition.
Continue filling each section of the tree in the same way as the first.
Once complete, stitch some snow on the top…
Final details to complete the block…
#840: Chain Stitch the tree trunk
#3756: French Knots for the Snow
#415: Back stitch the Block Outline
Your beautiful Fir Tree is complete
Share your completed blocks in the Happy Stitching FB Group or on Instagram with #stitchdoodlesembroidery.
Week 3 is on the blog Wednesday 26th January… See you then!
Happy Stitching!
Brilliant stitch a long, but is it possible to acquire a pdf each week, as I find it difficult stitching from a screen 😁
Many thanks
Hi Christine, thanks for the message. I realise its easier to print for stitching but with the tutorials being free – the blog is the first way of getting the pattern, to produce a pdf alongside each blog tutorial would be a huge amount of work and unfortunately I don’t have the time. What I do is compile the whole patternn into 1 PDF at the end which is then available to purchase for those who prefer to print out. Hope that explains and s glad you are enjoying it so far. x