Linda's Review Of "Stained Glass" Ornaments Kit by Design Works Crafts

When I first looked at the "Stained Glass" ornaments kit by Design Works Crafts I thought how pretty and how wonderful they would look on my pencil Christmas tree. They looked pretty simple and easy to me.  Turns out looks can be deceptive.   It took me much longer than I first thought to finish the six ornaments in this kit.

What I didn't know before I bought the kit was that there was a lot of black floss highlighting for each ornament that transformed them from a pretty ornament to a beautiful ornament.  The highlighting really makes them stand-out and is well worth the extra time it takes to finish each ornament.  It's quite amazing to see them in person.  What added to the length of time was the black highlighting is done one stitch at a time.

The "Stained Glass" ornament kit contained the color cotton floss, #14 plastic canvas, needle and instructions.  The pattern uses full counted cross-stitch and outline stitching for emphasis and depth.

This is the first time I have worked with the #14 plastic canvas and I have to tell you it was wonderful.  It was flexible enough to just hold it in your hands but also rigid enough to allow you to cross-stitch it without any problem.

The chart was 11 1/2" by 17" and had four of the ornaments vertically aligned in a row along the top of the chart with two of the ornaments horizontally laid in a row along the bottom.  The intent was to cross-stitch the plastic canvas in the same manner.  However, I decided to cut the plastic canvas into six pieces beforehand as it would make it easier to cross-stitch each of the ornaments.

The pattern came with starting, stitching and finishing instructions as well as a sample of the two stitches required and a black and white chart with black and white coded symbols.  The symbols on the keys and chart were basically easy to read and follow but, for some reason, I kept confusing two of the triangle symbols every time I looked at the black and white chart.  If the black and white chart were just a little bigger or were actually color coded I think this could have been avoided.

I did have a few problems with the embroidery floss contained within the kit.  Unfortunately there wasn't enough black, light red, and green embroidery floss contained within the kit so I had to use some from my stash.

Also, the floss color key chart had the number of floss strands included within the kit for each color floss but 8 of colors were different than the actual numbers of floss strands contained within the kit.  For all 8 of these colors there was more floss strands than the key indicated.

I had no problem cross-stitching the "Stained Glass" ornaments and then cutting the plastic canvas close to the sides of the ornaments according to the finishing instructions.  I didn't like leaving the ornaments with the back threads showing so I decided to finish the back of my ornaments with white felt.

I rubbed Glue Stic on the back of my ornaments and then glued a rectangle piece of white felt to the back.  Once the felt was glued on I cut the white felt in the same shape as the ornament and then stitched the plastic canvas to the white felt along the sides of each ornament with two strands of white embroidery floss. I created a hanger for the top of each ornament with two strands of the white embroidery floss.

After I was done with all the ornaments I hung them on my pencil tree.  They all look beautiful there.

I was thrilled with the way my "Stained Glass"ornaments turned out and hope you like them too.