Christmas Needlepoint Ornament

Janet's Story

My favorite stitching is to make a Christmas needlepoint ornament. I make them all year long and generally have an orgy of finishing each December. I use them to try out new threads, new color combinations, new types or canvas, and new techniques.

I have so many needlepoint ornaments that this year when, because of moving, we won’t go hog wold for Christmas, I’m still planning on an all needlepoint tree.

The origins of this major focus of my needlepoint is simple. Starting the year I was 12 (which was even before I learned needlepoint), my mom bought me a new Christmas ornament. This had many consequences: I love ornaments and collect them, I do the same thing for my kids (and my DH), and our tree is very eclectic and stuffed with ornaments.

I make at least one for each child each year, have dozens of mini socks which trim our railings, and for many years stitched almost nothing else.

Christmas ornaments are the perfect needlepoint for a busy life. I stitched while on the bus commuting and later, when I travelled for work all the time, in many airports, planes, and hotel rooms.Even now, when my life is quieter, I almost always am making one or two and have one as my "car project."

When we trim the tree, all these homemade Christmas needlepoint ornaments bring back so many memories. There is the needlepoint of the Alamo (bought oddly enough on my first trip to Houston). There is the set of Mika Partridge snowflakes in metallics which were my first real chance to use Kreinik's threads.

There is the simple needlepoint Madonna and child which was finished as a tree topper and sits on our small Jesus tree. There is my son's Buffalo from Petei, which I made for him last year as a remembrance of his favorite stuffed animal, Animal. It’s the piece with the button back conversion. And when I go through the ornaments I think of all the ones which aren't on the tree because I gave them to my eldest daughter when she moved out on her own. Because of the legacy my mom gave me, when I was first married I had enough ornaments for a very small tree. It meant so much to me, it's a tradition I'm so glad to pass onto my kids.

Trimming the tree and house for the season always fills me with memories. Making a Christmas needlepoint ornament helps bring them and the people I made them for to mind.