Late last month I wrote about a napkin I was embroidering with a rather wonky Kelly Fletcher monogram. Well, it got finished, wonkiness and all, and in time will no doubt be used and get stained with tomato soup or something; some people say that’s a shame, and it’s far too nice to be used (like the tea towel I embroidered recently), but the alternative is to put them in a drawer and forget about them, so I’m in the “use” camp.

That, however, was not what I meant to write about today. The fact is that I enjoyed stitching that napkin, and that it gave me an idea for a small Christmas present for a friendly couple. The wife is a fellow stitcher (she also quilts) and often presents us with a stitched present at our annual pre-Christmas dinner, and in return so far I’ve been rather unimaginatively sticking with cards. Well, what about Christmas napkins? I drew a simple holly wreath and the plan is to stitch a napkin each, with their initial in the holly wreath.

For this I needed two things: more napkins, and a plan on how to stitch the holly leaves. The napkin I had in my stash was one made of a cotton/linen mix, and was bought from The Clever Baggers. Unfortunately their postage is rather high for small orders (the original napkin had hitched along with a larger order of cotton bags), so I looked elsewhere. I found a modestly-priced pack of eight napkins, slightly smaller than the CB one and 100% cotton.

A quick comparison with my first napkin showed that they are quite different: the cotton/linen napkin is softer and has a more open weave, while the cotton napkins are much more densely woven. The latter is perhaps not a bad thing for surface embroidery where you can’t use a backing fabric, as it makes it less likely that any threads carried at the back will show at the front.

One thing to bear in mind when buying napkins (or any fabric really), especially when they arrive folded up in a pack like these ones did, is that they may well need ironing before you can use them. These had obviously been in their pack for quite some time; they were so creased that I decided to wash them first, and iron them while still damp. While ironing the first one I had to iron some parts of it so much that I managed to scorch it slightly (just about visible in the picture), and even then the creases were still very much in evidence. The only thing to do was to find the smoothest corners on the two least creased ones and use those. Oh, and by the way, how did a cat hair make its way onto the new napkins already!?!?

On to the holly. I wanted to keep the wreath quite plain, although I did draw a slightly denser one with a double ring of holly leaves as well, but that won’t get used this time.

But with either design, the important decision is how to stitch the holly leaves. Solidly filled? Outlined? If the former, satin stitch, long & short, fly, fishbone? If the latter, backstitch (whipped or plain), split stitch, running stitch? Or even fly stitch as well? Having used fishbone stitch on the leaves in the Kelly Fletcher napkin, I rather liked that idea, but I had to see whether I could make it work for the spiky holly shape. Roll on a doodle cloth, on which I stitched two fishbone holly leaves (the second a bit less successfully spiky than the first), one using fly stitch as a filling and one-and-a-half using fly stitch as an outline, with the holding stitches forming the spikes.

All in all I like the fishbone look best, and the back is quite neat too. The fly stitch outline I’ll keep in mind for the denser holly wreath, where it could be used alternatingly with fishbone stitch so that it wouldn’t get too dense. Now to decide how to stitch the initials – it shouldn’t be too solid (or it would overpower the wreath), but not too wispy either (or it would get overwhelmed itself). An outline in whipped chain stitch seemed to fit the bill best; a red initial for her and a green one for him, both whipped in golden yellow. Unfortunately the coton à broder #16 I wanted to use comes in a fairly limited range, and nothing from DMC’s golden yellow range is available in that thickness, so I resorted to the thinner #25 for the whipping. It works quite well!

Should you like to try these holly wreaths for yourself, you can now find them on the Freebies page; the PDF contains notes about stitches and threads, and both wreath in two sizes. Enjoy !