The Mary Stuart Hussif

 I have stitched yet another Mary Stuart Hussif for a gift, I think it’s possibly the seventh one I have made over the years. Way back in the 198’s a visitor to the guild in Tokoroa  brought one to show us, then I  found the instructions and history in a ANZEG Threads Magazine. It’s history in New Zealand dates back to early 1960s before the Association of guilds ere formed in New Zealand. Lone packets were sent out from England  for embroiderers to mull over.  A packet featuring blackwork contained a small hussif and later Mary Sturt president at the time of the south Otago Guild set it as a small project for a year, with the result in the south it became known as the Mary Stuart Hussif. And it was introduced to us as the Mary Stuart Hussif and I still refer to it as that today, this one was stitched for my Christmas gift for the Guild Christmas party exchange of gifts this week. For this one I used 40 count permin linen and stitched harebells in cross stitch, the lining is a liberty fabric.

A little stitching

I have been stitching pieces on a gingerbread folk theme.

First is two Christmas decorations, these designs I have stitched before many years ago, again delighted how they  turned out, Stitched on 40 count Permin linen

I 

The small notebook cover has a Christmas gnome holding a gingerbread man, I would love to stitch more of these gnome designs but the list to do for Christmas keeps growing so I must move on. Jan has requested Christmas gnomes for a tree she plans on that theme , these I am making on polystyrene  balls in different colours, the fun part for me will be creating the hats,  these are well on the way and hopefully will be shown in my next post.

 Two other projects under way both quite different  for Ronan’s Christmas gift I am making a board game using the Paw Patrol as the theme,  Jan has put together ideas for the game that will help develop Ronan’s skills and so the game can have different parts added later. The fun part of creating the game is mine.

For herself for Christmas Jan has requested a felt board set of the Hungry Caterpillar, I made this for Finn in 2019 and had kept most of my patterns what a hungry chap that caterpillar was he ate  his way through 15 pieces of food.   I like to make all the pieces double felt and buttonhole stitch the edges to make them last longer, specially in this case where it will be a class room set and get a lot of handling. 

My computer is telling me to back up and replace the hard drive, so find myself doing more on the iPad and this time have had success in putting together this posting now to hit the publish button before I lose it all.