Sue Hillis Cross-Stitch Designs Blog

I LOVE the Christmas season!  I love the smells of Christmas baking, I love the warmth of the home décor, and the hustle and bustle of the shopping (well, most of it anyway!) and I love the cold, crisp weather…it’s the best time of the year for me.  I love family and friends coming together and sharing the anticipation of Christmas morning with the grandchildren.

I have always enjoyed my many Christmas trees and generally choose this time of year to do our hosting and entertaining friends.  For a while, I was adding a tree a year…bringing the grand total to 12 at one point…however, common sense kicked in and stopped the crazy progression, though I DO have some rooms still with NO trees in them! 

In my later years I have learned that putting up all the trees every year really is somewhat insane (not to mention exhausting!)…besides the children need to be creating their own family traditions.  My solution was to alternate the Thanksgiving and Christmas holidays!

So when it’s a Christmas year (2009) then we don’t host Thanksgiving which means I can start putting up my trees in November—I just don’t plug in the lights. 

When we built this house, we made room for a huge storage room just for seasonal decor…I am the queen of Rubbermaid tubs and wire shelving!  I am sure my children are already arguing about who has to deal with it when I am no longer aware of my immediate surroundings!

I thought you might like to share my trees with me.  I’ll be posting a couple of trees every few days until Christmas, ending with the large family tree in our living room.  Most of the trees have some sort of theme…and we’ll start with the tree in my home office.  Being a needlework designer, of course sewing and needlework tools are close to my heart.  This little tree is decorated with rag balls that are made from strips of the upholstery fabric that covers the furniture in this room.  There are also little sewing boxes I made from papier mache boxes, rolls of fabric and small spools covered with the appropriately colored floss…there are wooden scissors, and stacks of spools, antique button cards and needle folders, and bits of old lace.  Favorite ornaments are two that were made for me out of tiny spools stacked into a Christmas tree shape, and another made into a wreath of spools.      

Posted on December 13th, 2009 by Sue
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Christmas in the Kitchen just makes you want to start baking cookies with your grandma…or your grandkids!  These little motifs would be cute stitched
onto a jar top full of Christmas treats to give as a gift, or a bread cloth…or frame it for yourself!   Fits into the usual 8″ x 10″ frame when stitched on 14/28 count
to make it easy for you!   Available now from Joanne.  Merry Christmas!!

Posted on November 25th, 2009 by Sue
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Here is the newest annual Santa…he is finally finished and is almost finished being stitched up.  He should be at your favorite shop at the beginning of November.  He is the sixth in the annual series and you can see them all at www.suehillisdesigns.net.  All have a similar border so you can group them together if you choose.  Part of our Charming Collection, the Poinsettia Santa has a gold poinsettia charm hanging from the basket, and when stitched on 14/28 count fabric, he fits perfectly into a standard 8″ x 10″ frame.  The charm is included with the leaflet for your convenience.  Thanks for looking!

Posted on October 25th, 2009 by Sue
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Yummm….no explanation neccessary for this PostStitch…I think we all can relate to the message!
When I was working on the cruise project with those Whitman Tins, I was inspired by the way the
Chocolates LOOKED (aside from the taste, of course!).  Your favorite shops should have it about October 1st!

This PostStitch comes with the little gold key, and of course fits into a standard frame.  Stitch count
is 55w x 81h. 

Posted on September 17th, 2009 by Sue
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Here she is!  You can see she’s got the rep to support the phrase “Women who behave rarely make history”!  And the handcuffs charm pretty much say it all.  A nice complement to the other pirates, this design fits nicely into a standard 4″ x 6″ or 5″ x 7″ frame.  She will be making her debut at the St. Charles trade show at the end  of the month so she will be in the shops on October 1. 

Posted on September 16th, 2009 by Sue
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Here’s another new design that I will be showing at the St. Charles Show next week (next week??  already??  I have so much to do still!)
I have a Halloween themed design like this from last year and it’s a good seller so I thought I would expand the idea…hence Happy Holidays! 

It will be available to shops on September 26th, so if you like the design, ask your favorite shopowner for it!

Posted on September 12th, 2009 by Sue
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As you can see, the design continued to evolve after I posted this design…I ended up with the witch in front of the moon, and I found a piece of Lavender Lugana (14/28 count to
stitch it on (and I love the way it looks on the lavender!).  A dark and stormy night overdye was just too dark with the dark boot, and the bright purple was also just too much so when I found the lavender, I was thrilled with the way it looks–hope you like it!
LOTS more new designs coming this month to be introduced at the St. Charles Wholesale tradeshow…so if you see something you like, be sure to ask your favorite shopowner to come visit us in booth 603!!

Posted on September 10th, 2009 by Sue
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This is one of many new designs I’ll be showing later this month at the the National Needlework Association market at St. Charles MO.     
It’s called “Homecoming” and it will be packaged with small star charms for the sky.  The model, I think, will be stitched on a dark sky background if I can find one I like.  This is Platinum colored fabric, 28 count.  Of course, it fits perfectly into a standard 8 x 10 frame.  Hope you like it!

Posted on September 1st, 2009 by Sue
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Here she is…the power behind the pirates!  Ann Hobbs (of Midnight Marker fame) sent me a t-shirt that said Pirate Queen on it…and that got the juices flowing again for this design.  I like the way she turned out…she’s obviously in charge, but like every woman, likes a bit of pirate attention too!  This design is part of the PostStitch Collection and comes with the rose charm.  It will be available at 123Stitch and in local shops next week…thanks for looking! 

Posted on June 30th, 2009 by Sue
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Gerry had posted a photo collage of her boys and DH  at 123 Stitch and used this verse…I was so taken by it I couldn’t wait to get it into a design.  We researched the phrase and could only find that it was attributed to that clever person “Anonymous”  so I went ahead with it.  It was fun to chart.  I couldn’t get it into a standard size frame but you could buy those frames from the craft and hobby store that are sold by the side–like this one would need a pair of 10″ and of 12″…  I am having the model stitched on 16 count.  The stitch size is 182 x 142…and I just realized I need to work on the S in Small Boys…  Hope you like it!  It needs to be stitched then printed so it will be available in about 2 weeks.

Posted on June 24th, 2009 by Sue
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