Similar Designs with Personal Touches, and a Christmas Tradition
Every Christmas, I try to stitch something special for my girls. It's become a quiet little tradition over the years — one that feels just as meaningful to me as it does to them.
This past Christmas, though, I mixed things up a bit. Instead of cross-stitch, I reached for blackwork, and I'm so glad I did.
Blackwork is a style of embroidery that relies heavily on backstitch to create repeating patterns, motifs, and filled shapes. It's traditionally very graphic and structured, and while it looks intricate, it's often much more approachable than people expect. I'll be sharing a much more in-depth explanation of blackwork in a future post, but for now, think of it as backstitch doing the heavy lifting — in the best possible way.
The Blackwork Pieces
This year, I stitched two blackwork pieces, one for each of my two daughters. The patterns are from the same amazing designer (TrunkyStitches) and intentionally very similar, which made it feel right to talk about them together rather than as separate projects.
Both pieces were stitched on 18ct Aida and framed in 4" embroidery hoops, matching the size and style of the Christmas pieces I've stitched for them in previous years. I deliberately stitched the full designs rather than cropping them to the hoop, which allowed the patterns to wrap naturally into the frame and create a full-coverage look. I really love how they turned out.
My oldest daughter received the unicorn blackwork piece, while my youngest was gifted the cat blackwork piece. Although I mostly followed the original designs, I couldn't resist making a couple of small changes to personalise my youngest's piece specifically, a bit more. I swapped the black hearts for red ones and adjusted the central cat to look brighter than the suggested colour palette. Trusting my instincts paid off — I absolutely love how those tweaks turned out.
The girls were thrilled with their gifts and wasted no time hanging them up in their bedrooms. Seeing something I made displayed so proudly never really gets old 🧡
Close-ups of the Pieces
A (Gentle) Note on What I Didn't Stitch
You might notice there's no stitched piece for my husband this time around — and that was very intentional (and very kind, I promise!). He's mentioned before that he has so many pieces stitched by me that he's not entirely sure what to do with them all. When I went to start his project and couldn't even find the fabric and printed pattern I'd set aside, I took it as a sign to skip his piece this year… at least for now 😉
One of my biggest takeaways from these projects was how much I enjoyed working in blackwork. I always forget that I actually don't mind backstitching at all. Sometimes I wonder if the internet has slightly brainwashed us into thinking backstitch is something to dread, simply because it gets such a bad rap online. This was a good reminder to dive right in and form my own opinions — and I'm already looking forward to stitching more blackwork in the future.
