The Christmas Nutcracker cross stitch from Bothy Threads

Back in Christmas 2023 I was lucky enough to be given a cross stitch kit by a friend. She had received it as a gift, and although she loves nutcrackers she doesn't love cross stitch, so she kindly passed it on to me. 

This counted cross stitch design is The Christmas Nutcracker by Bothy Threads and it is worked on navy blue Aida. The design uses full cross stitches as well as back stitch, Lazy Daisy stitch and French knots, includes sequins, and uses a somewhat limited colour palette. It's a great Christmas stitching project, and the final piece fits perfectly into a 30x40cm frame.

I didn't get too far the first Christmas, I just sorted out the kit and then made a start working from the centre. I managed to complete the top of the Nutcracker, which gives a good base for working on the rest of the design. Because the Nutcracker is symmetrical and formed of large blocks of colour it's an easy section to work on without needing to constantly refer to the printed pattern.

By last Christmas I had made some more progress, with most of the top half of the design in place. It stitches up quite quickly, because although there are some tricky areas to count there are very few areas that contain similar colours worked together.

If you sit down for an evening of stitching you can feel like you've made quite a lot of progress and covered a fair bit of the canvas. The border looks tricky but once you've got the repeating pattern in your head you can stitch it up quite easily.

At the beginning of this year the project was put to one side while I concentrated on other things, although it was always at the back of mind to pick it up again this Christmas. In September my husband was away a lot, and I decided to sit down and have a really good go at getting it finished in time to frame for Christmas this year.

The cross stitch design is actually completed over two layers with two separate patterns. Most of the work is in the first layer which is the cross stitch layer. Then you can move on to the finishing off layer.

Here is a glimpse of the cross stitch with the first layer of stitching complete. You can see that there are still quite a few gaps, but the majority of the design is in place. 

Then I moved on to adding the final stitches to complete the design - here's a comparison showing the first cross stitch layer and then how it looks with the second layer of stitching added to the top. This layer was quite tricky for me. Most of it is backstitch with just a few French knots, but it was the Lazy Daisy stitches that really threw me and there are so many of them - I struggled to get them to look perfect! But it looks so good once the final stitches are added and the design fills out. There are a few sequins dotted about as well.

I really enjoyed completing this cross stitch, it was fun and satisfying to work on and not too complicated. There aren't many colours to keep track of, the pattern is easy to follow, and it works up fairly quickly. Stitching on the dark coloured Aida wasn't always easy, especially in the evening, but it looks really effective with the bright colours. 

It will take pride of place among my homemade Christmas decorations. If you are interested in more Christmas cross stitch designs then you might also enjoy seeing my finished Christmas ABC Sampler from Design Works which I completed a few years ago. 

I also have my eye on another Christmas cross stitch kit from Bothy Threads, but I have a few kits that I need to get finished first. One of them is another Christmas themed design, which I'm wondering if I can also complete ready to display this year!