Diamonds Are A Girl’s Best Friend!

I said I would give the tutorial for our Church Christmas Tree Decorations – I prepared a double sided sheet for the needleworkers – one side had just written instructions, the other side was a simplified set of diagrams – people said the pictures helped!

STITCHED AND FOLDED DIAMONDS

Cut two circles of fabric – one plain and one a Christmas print. They should be about 7½” diameter, and on the wrong side of one piece, draw a circle 7” diameter [I used 2 tea plates of slightly different sizes] The circle marks the stitching line, which can be sewn with hand or machine stitching – but finishing needs to be done by hand. Iron with medium [2 dots] heat. Stitch as follows;

1. Place the pieces right sides together

2. Stitch ON THE LINE which is drawn on the plain piece, but leave a 1” gap at the top of the circle for turning [see picture below]

3. Clip the curves carefully, at ½” intervals and turn the shape out. Gently push the shape into a perfect circle [a chopstick or blunt end of a pencil is useful for this]

4. Carefully iron flat, and when you are happy with the circle, fold in raw edges and close the gap with a few tiny slip stitches.

5. Now fold the circle in half and use pins to mark the ends of the fold.

6. Open up, and fold again, at right angles, bringing those pins together. Put 2 more pins in the ends of the fold

7. Open up – you should have your circle marked at equidistant 4 points [N,S, E, W]

8. Place fabric circle with PLAIN SIDE DOWN, have a threaded needle ready!

9. Lift up top and bottom, bringing pins at N and S together. Make a few tiny stitches at the centre to hold them in place. Do NOT stitch too tightly, and do NOT cut the thread!

10. Now bring points E and W up to the centre, stitch them as well. Fasten off the thread. [You should now have a shape that is like a little bag, plain on the outside, patterned inside – see illustration below]

11. Carefully flatten the shape so that you have a plain 3” diamond shape on the back, and patterned slits across the diagonals on the front

12. Now press the edges of your diamond flat. Make sure the corners are right angles, and the sides are 3” long

13. Open up the four ‘petals’ revealing the printed fabric in turn  [see illustration below]

14. Fold the petal corners over to the back of the shape [they should be tiny right-angled triangles]

15. Press flat, and sew the button in place in the centre of the petals [you can stitch right through – the other side will be covered by Aida]

When you turn the shape over, you have a diamond with four little contrast corners. You can leave this as it is, or put in a piece of Aida evenweave canvas on which you have stitched some words.

STITCHED MESSAGES

You will need a 5½” square of Aida. and a 2¾” square of thin card. Stitch your design in the centre of the canvas

MOUNTING THE CROSS STITCH

1. Once stitched, please press the piece on the wrong side

2. Put the card diamond centrally onto the back of the Aida, and fold the edges over neatly.

3. Press these edges flat and use a few slip stitches to hold the fabric onto its card backing.

4. This is now ready to slip into the corners of your fabric diamond. Then neatly stitch round the edges to hold it in place. Sew hanging loop now using a 5” length of ribbon.

Sorry, this is such a long tutorial, I needed to explain everything very carefully on the instructions I gave to my friends.

Because this is for the Christmas Tree Festival, we chose 40 names of Jesus [Prince of Peace, Son of David, Good Shepherd, Light of the World etc ] but you could stitch your own message [Baby’s first Christmas, Christmas 2015, Season’s Greetings or whatever]

I prepared the charts using my Jane Greenoff Cross Stitch programme. If anybody would like to have the stitching charts for these 40 names of Jesus, email me, and I will happily send them to you.