Had a very enjoyable Christmas lunch with our stitching group this afternoon, and yes, I did have 12 stitched cards with me . Of necessity the stitched part was rather small, but I hope the ladies realised they weren’t any the less well-meant for that.

Rummaging through my designs I decided that even my little stand-by motif was going to take too long to stitch – I can stitch it by heart, but it involves cutting and bar-wrapping which eat up time. Obviously, something non-cut was called for, like the little freebie star I did some time ago. But no beads. Too time-consuming. Perhaps a surface square filet? But that needed a bit more space in the centre, so I shortened the inward-pointing bits to open it up. I played around a bit with the inner corners, trying them both square and rounded; I think I prefer the latter as it joins the sides together a little more. And here they are: twelve little stars, all in different colours, and the second picture shows them on their cards.

And for those of you who have some last-minute Christmas stitching to do, and who like this alternative version of the non-cut mini star, here is the chart. Get out your odds and ends of pretty threads to play with and enjoy!