OhSewCrafty Blog

• Pattern: from Mill Hill kit
• Fabric: 28 ct stormy grey jobelan, DMC floss & Mill Hill beads as kitted
• Size: 5″ x 5″
• Time to stitch: 7 days

My 2nd piece of the Mill Hill village is complete and I am chuffed!  

The pattern was fine, easy to read, good directions.  The only thing is there are 8 colors of beads on this small project!  Beading took longer than DMC stitching.  I had to skip a few beads in the long rows because they wouldn’t all fit on the fabric as charted.  They would fit on perforated paper, I suppose.  Right, so I swapped out the perforated paper (from the kit) because I will stitch 12 of these pieces, together on a fat half of fabric. 

The materials are fine.  A few beads wouldn’t fit on the beading needle, so I had to toss them.  I used almost every single one of the petite champagne (silver) beads.  I made one mod- as charted the toy shop letters are beaded with the red seed beads.  I felt it looked crowded and muddy.  So I frogged and redid it with the petite blue beads. I like it better in blue anyway…. that’s my son’s favorite color.

My favorite details are the gift with the beaded bow, the doors with the gold doorknobs, and the cute little wagon.

Doesn’t that look like an inviting place to shop?  For the bead swags I thread the beads from point A to point B, then I go back to a row or two below, in the middle, come up and down in the same place, around the bead string.  This tacks it down, and gives it the swag shape. I love the allover sparkle.  I also stitched more of the snowflake border, in Kreinik #4 braid color 032.

With 2 buildings done, I am so happy with the color coordination, the spacing, and how they look with the border.  I’m pacing myself with this project (1 building/quarter), so it will take 3 years to finish, but it will be worth it.  If you are interested in stitching along with me and several others, come find us on FB… the group is called “Mill Hill Christmas Village”.