My first craft was sewing. I can’t remember not knowing how to thread a needle and set a stitch. I’m not much of a one for embroidery – something which I do intend to change – but I do like cross-stitch. Especially the little kits, like you get with the magazines.

They seem to fill a similar sort of role as the chocolate stands by the tills in supermarkets, though. Hobbycraft do kits small enough for a card-patch, for relatively little, stationed by the tills, usually with an offer (3 for £6, I think, is the current one). And I can normally find three I like.

This time, I was caught by an embroidery kit in the mix, of mistletoe, and then rummaged for another couple, for Christmas cards. A snowman and a gnome.

In the past, I’ve struggled with the Hobbycraft cross-stitch kits, because they’ve contained fractionals and lots of French knots and other fiddly stitches which I haven’t the time or patience to do. I’m a bit lazy like that. More recently, though, they seem to have given up on the fractional stitches. Mostly. They’re in the back-stitching, but I find them less of a problem there.

They still have the French knots, but I now switch them out for gems or something. One day, when I learn other embroidery stitches, no doubt, I shall learn to do French knots properly. Today, though, is not that day.

So the snowman will have something else for eyes.

I have waxed lyrical in the past about Mouseloft kits. But they aren’t the only small kit makers out there. Where they do better than the Hobbycraft kits, though, is in the instructions.

Mini kits like these are often made by beginners. Mouseloft assumes this, and gives full instructions, down to labelling the colours of the threads and stating how many strands of each are provided.

Hobbycraft seems to assume some knowledge, so doesn’t explain how to make the cross stitch. Admittedly, not really a problem for me, but something to bear in mind if you are. Where it really fails, though, is in not naming the colours. They just stick a solid-colour indicator next to the thread symbol. Not a problem, if all the colours are completely different.

When there are shades, however, it becomes difficult to work out which thread to use. For example, with the gnome, the colour of the arms and the boots is only just different to the black of the back-stitching. But the colour-indicator and the thread are both extremely easy to misidentify. I had to get M to double-check for me. The snowman’s purples, too, caused a bit of a problem, though not as bad as the gnome. Being told I was looking for “dark grey”, or “dark purple”, would have been a help in deciding if the threads were indeed different colours.

The other issue I had with this, which admittedly I really should have seen coming from the image on the box, was all the white for the snowman. White on white. Never easy to stitch, and who thought that was a good idea?! Especially since you’ll likely start from the centre of the image, where all that white is. Why not a different colour for the aida? And then there was separating the white from the off-white. Let’s just say this wasn’t a favourite pattern (but it does sort of match a stamp, so I have ideas for the card).

Neither of these problems will likely stop me from getting more of these kits, or of using the patterns again (Hobbycraft is extremely generous in the supply of threads!), but if you’re a complete beginner, I’d suggest starting with Mouseloft. Or a magazine.

Now I’d better give the mistletoe embroidery a go.