July 2020 Ornament: Praise the Demon Santa!

After all, Santa is an anagram of Satan...

Since I make an absolutely ridiculous number of Christmas ornaments every year, I've decided I'll just feature my favourite each month here.

This ornament is stitched over one with one strand of floss on a mystery (and weirdly crunchy) 28 count linen scrap from my stash. It's from the 2013 Happy Christmas book by Prairie Schooler, and the pattern itself is great! I subbed colours I had on hand, including a DMC Étoile for his hat and jacket, and the DMC Light Effects B5200 for the trim on the same. I used some mystery petite red Mill Hill beads from one of their ornament kits. The bobble on the end of his hat is an iridescent white sequin held on with a bead!

I restarted this project twice, first because I was stitching over two and it ended up being too large. Second time I just miscounted. The Light Effects over one was a nightmare to stitch, I won't lie. And to top it off, I left him on my beside table overnight and when I woke up he had a giant mystery black stain across the bottom of the fabric! At that point I threw up my hands and declared him cursed, which is strangely appropriate given his position and weird demon-looking tongue. I asked The Frenchman what he thought about beads vs stitches for the snow, and he laughed and said "with this project, why not snowing blood? Lean in to the curse!"

So, I did - and we have Praise Demon Santa! He turned out cute. I mounted him on a small piece of wood with coordinating fabric and rick rack trim. Everything is just hot glued, as I was super done with him by that point. He turned out cute, but he is definitely relegated to the Drawer of Ornaments until I'm less annoyed and it's closer to Christmas!

- Cedie

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