Begin with the little swirl mints on the roof, the chimney top, and the shutters. Place one mint at the peak of the roof, one at the bottom, and space 3 evenly between on both sides. Mine turned out to be about an inch apart. I just marked my spots with a pin. (Place 3 mints on the chimney top.)
I used my Staedtler shape template to mark the 3/8 inch circles. For each one I made 8 dots around the circle (that is easy, the 4 marks are on the template, then make one dot between each mark. My favorite marking tool is this 3 in 1 pencil from Sewline, mostly because it is super fine and the only one I can use with my spoke easy templates.
Now using the red thread, make one stitch between each pair of dots. Once you’ve stitched the circle, make a little swirl inside.
And repeat for all of the “mints”. Then take the white thread and go back and make back stitches to “fill in” the space between the swirls. It doesn’t cover all of the space, but it works great.
The shutter mints are slightly smaller than 3/8 to fit in the space.
Use green thread to sew french knots between the mints on the roof and shutters. Check the pattern for the number of wraps for each french knot.
Chain Stitch along top edge of roof and under the outside lip of the eaves.
Under roof, bullion knot (15 wraps) taking care to center a wrap at the top of the eaves.
Backstitch around the shutters & chimney top.
Straight stitch & couch all the brick lines on the chimney.
Stem stitch around the sides and top of each window. Also stem stitch a cross in the middle to form 4 panes. With the red thread, stitch a 3 line needle weave bar for each window box. One line is on the window, one line along the bottom edge of the window and one below. Tack down the window boxes a couple of times across the top and bottom to secure in place.
For the window box that is partially behind the doghouse, the lines will be different lengths. That is ok. Begin weaving on the left, when you get to the point where there are only 2 lines, just weave between those two lines.
Use detached chain stitches, feather stitches, closed fly stitches, straight stitches, & stem stitches to create the greenery in the boxes. – See photos for details. Apparently I forgot to take a photo of the upper left window before I added blooms. Sorry!
Use french knots & bullion knots to create the blooms for the flowers. –See photos for details.
For the door wreath, draw a circle where the middle of the wreath goes. First stitch closed fly stitches around the circle. Then go back and add a detached chain stitch between all of the fly stitches. Jump around a bit to even out the variegation (otherwise your wreath will be sorta striped, light to dark.) Add clusters of 3 french knot berries in 3 places around the wreath. Check the pattern for # of wraps.
The door handle is the same as the “mints” only with the colors reversed. Begin with a circle of white…
The candy cane pillars are straight stitches on a diagonal up each of the side posts and across the top beam, alternating between the red and lime ribbons. Iron the ribbon flat before you begin. Use a length of ribbon 18 inches or shorter, preferably 12 inches. Take care to keep the ribbon flat as you stitch.
Around the door, the ribbon stitches are about 1/2 inch apart. Use the green pearl cotton to add a stripe between each red stripe. To keep the right angle on the stripes as it moves around the circle, I focused on the ribbon being at a 45 degree angle at the center of each stitch. Or, just look closely at the full color print in your pattern.
For the doghouse roof, backstitch under the roof, chain stitch ends and along the top, then add french knots in red and green along the roof. Check the pattern for # of wraps.
Couch a thread in stripes on the dog house so it appears to have siding, including along the bottom edge of the doghouse. Backstitch up the side walls. Backstitch around the door.
Backstitch around dog. Add fly stitches to define the legs, make woven picots for ears. Use a little piece of paper or yardstick (i use post it notes cut carefully) under your weaving to make it easier to do. The pins mark the center of the head and each ear so they are spaced evening.
French knots for eyes, satin stitch the nose, and straight stitches for the mouth. See the pattern for more details.
Finally a few finishing touches: Backstitch along the bottom of the door. Chain stitch along the bottom the house, and backstitch around the chimney. We will embellish the little tree along with the large one when we finish all 3 houses.
