Most Wonderful Time Christmas Embroidery

This festive Most Wonderful Time Christmas embroidery pattern is a fun stitch for the holidays! And don’t miss these beginner embroidery tips so you can launch yourself into this fun craft.

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I’ve discovered a new hobby! My mom taught me to cross-stitch when I was younger (this is my favorite cross-stitch pattern to date), but I never attempted embroidery until the last few years. I took a couple of classes on it at a blog conference (my friend Bev is wonderful at it and taught the classes) and loved my finished project but never continued the craft.

Then 2020 hit. With EVERYONE working from home, and not just me, accessing my craft space has been more difficult because the room it is in is now my husband’s office. Also, acting as a virtual learning coach for my two boys, I’m interrupted quite a bit which doesn’t work with all the types of crafting I like to do (glue and paint dry too fast for lots of interruptions). I also sprained my ankle pretty severely in August which led to some crazy health issues (now luckily under control) which left me quite stationary.

I started looking into embroidery and found that it was a great craft for one who wasn’t moving about much. And is easily paused to help the kiddos with their schoolwork needs. I’ve gotten quite into it and, after some fun practice projects, felt confidant enough to create my own pattern for Christmas and give it a stitch! Now that it’s finished, I’m ready to share it and the pattern with you! I have some great beginner tips to share as well

And if embroidery isn’t your thing, I am also sharing the design as a free printable file you can frame for the holidays.

Since I definitely consider myself a beginner, I’m going to share what I used to get to get comfortable learning the stitches and the tools I used to create the first few projects I made.

To start with, I scoured Etsy for some good embroidery samplers. I was looking for ones that would allow me to practice multiple stitches as well as state the name of the stitch because there are SO MANY, and I wanted something to reference once I started embroidering finished patterns.

I found these two from Little Dear, and they were absolutely perfect! The Floral Bouquet sampler (top left) was my first project, followed immediately by the Stitch Sampler Beginner (bottom right). I purchased these patterns with just the printed fabric design and the directions because I already had gathered other supplies I would need (embroidery hoops, needles, and thread), but you can also purchase complete kits to finish the projects.

You will most definitely also need a cute needle minder or two for your projects, and I highly suggest these designs from Flamingo Toes. They are ridiculously handy when pausing your projects so as not to lose your needle. I’m obsessed with the vintage floral doily one in the photo above.

After completing the samplers, I worked on my first big project which came as a kit from ADORNit. Isn’t this Day of the Dead skull fun? I didn’t finish him until November. One of my projects for 2021 will be to finish his girlfriend who also came with the kit.

Before talking about today’s project, I want to share a few the supplies I use to get all of the these embroidery projects finished. I find them extremely helpful!

Plastic embroidery hoop set – I only use these while working on a project and because of the range of sizes, I’ll always have what I need to get a project complete.
Embroidery needles – I wanted dedicated needles for embroidery projects, and these came in good size variations for a great price.
Folding scissors – These scissors are easy to stash when taking your project on the road, and just as sharp as embroidery scissors.
Rechargeable book light – These lights fit snugly to your hoop and provide much needed illumination. I can’t stitch without mine!
Portable project case – I keep all of my embroidery supplies in this case so everything is in one spot and easy to find.
Cute pincushion – I use this pincushion for all of the embroidery needles so they do not get mixed up with my other sewing supplies.
Mini iron – Honestly, I could have used this little iron in my craft stash a long time ago. But it is the perfect size for small projects like embroidery!
Sulky Stick N Stitch Stabilizer – This stuff is the COOLEST! You can print your sewing pattern on it and stick it to your fabric to guide your stitching. Then you wash it away in warm water.
Mesh Zipper Pouches – These aren’t really necessary, but I find them helpful for keeping my different projects together in their own places.
Embroidery Design Pocket Guide – The embroidery samplers I purchased were fantastic at practicing stitches, but I knew I would eventually run into some that I hadn’t practiced before. This guide has 51 stitches with directions on how to do them all. Super handy!

After completing the Day of the Dead embroidery, I knew I wanted to stitch up a Christmas one. After searching and searching, I could not find a pattern that suited me, so I decided to make my own! With years of designing printables and SVG cut files I figured I could come up with something. And I did, and LOVE how it turned out!

I used the Sulky Stick N Stitch Stabilizer to print out a 10″x 10″ pattern of my design but printing it out in sections on two sheets of the stabilizer (which comes in standard printing size) then trimming it so I could match it up on my fabric. And, speaking of fabric, I used a flour sack towel. You can find packs of them very inexpensively at Walmart.

The DMC embroidery thread colors I used are:

Red 817
Brown 898
Light Green 164
Pink 224
Blue 3811
Dark Green 561.

I do love this color combination for Christmas!

Here it is all finished and stitched up! It was so fun to design. I can definitely see myself designing more of them! But I also have some more patterns from Etsy on my list of things to do. There are SO many good ones there, and I love supporting small businesses.

I created some directions for the embroidery pattern. As with any pattern, you can always change the stitches to whatever you like. I just included what I did as an example.

Here are some close ups of some of the stitches if you need them when you sew this design.

To finish the look, I switched the fabric from the plastic hoop to an inexpensive wooden embroidery hoop that I wrapped in red yarn. The hot glued bow tops off the hoop to hide the metal clasp.

I have prepared downloadable directions and two 8″ patterns. One is as a PDF and one is a JPG if you want to resize the image. I cleaned up my original design to make it more print friendly.