“Silent
Mice©” is a smocking design plate by Little Memories, a wonderful
company that creates the cutest smocking plates. This has been one of my
favourite Christmas designs since I first saw it way back in the 80’s!
When I saw it first I decided that I was not going to all that work to have a child outgrow the outfit I had smocked. So I smocked the design on a Christmas ball.
When we
were blessed with a wee granddaughter this year, I wanted to create a Santa Sack
just for her and of course, a smocked Christmas ball. This design was the first
one I thought of for her first Christmas.
I sketched
the mouse and made a copy to use as a pattern. Then I cut him out of grey felt to appliqué on the red corduroy. I
added a red Santa hat and made a twisted cord of Pearl cotton to represent
Santa’s hat’s fur trim. Final touches of embroidery were added to complete his
eyes and whiskers. We looked everywhere and I finally ended up buying a bag of
72 little bells to get the right size! I wanted something special for the end
of the Santa hat.
The sack
is lined in Black Watch tartan (her great grandfather was a member of this
regiment!) and I used a piece of tartan to appliqué a little tag to the sack. I
found twist ties that looked like evergreen branches and couched a cou0ple of
these to the sack for the mouse to be sitting upon. And voila! a pretty good
representation of the design plate.
So don't wait till the last minute as I did, get working on your special Christmas needlework projects right after Christmas while the ideas are fresh in your head.
I’ve always
subscribed to the idea of crossing from one technique to another. This is a
perfect example of doing so. I do encourage you to check out the company Little
Memories and order some of their smocking design plates. You will love them!
So until
next time,
Keep on
stitching…..
