24 Days of Cross Stitch!

Hello everyone and I hope you had a Merry Christmas and Happy Holidays! Every year I like to get an artsy/crafty advent calendar and this year I decided to get the cross stitch advent calendar from Stitchfinity! If you are interested in learning more you can check it out on their website here: https://stitchfinity.com/product/adventcalendar2024/

One of the best parts of advent calendars is the surprise aspect, and these ladies did a great job at keeping things secret until people could figure it out from the clues every day. Even within the Facebook group, people were very mindful about warning when a post contained potential spoilers in case people fell behind. I had no idea what was being made until day 17! That being said, this post will contain spoilers, so if you are behind, you have been warned!

The set comes in a box with 24 envelopes, one to open each day as you count down to Christmas. I have only ever done 1 cross stitch project previously, so I would say I am still a beginner. If you have never done cross stitch before, they do have tutorials for how to get started as well as the day to day directions provided for the calendar. I documented my whole journey over on my TikTok page, so go check that out if you are interested! But let's recap here how it went.

Each day took me around an hour and a half to two hours to complete. I spent the month watching cheesy Christmas movies on Netflix every night with my envelope, directions, and a little help from the cats! We started out with a plastic canvas to work on, a fresh size 28 needle (secured in a tiny wool pom pom to prevent stabbing), all the thread needed for the project, and a card to organize the thread colors on. Each color thread was also indicated with a symbol on the card and on all future instructions to avoid any confusion with similar looking colors. Each day came with an instruction sheet with colored images to show the design being worked on and details about the project or fun facts about the advent calendar itself. Each day also had a joke on the back of the instructions and a letter colored in pink that ended up creating a secret message to decode at the end of the project!

Day 1 I managed to break my needle immediately, so I used some larger ones I had until I could go to the craft store to buy the proper size. It seems like several people had the needle break at some point, so I was not alone in this unfortunately. But this was the only negative part of my experience! The designs and directions were easy for me to follow as a beginner and I was excited to see what part was going to be stitched next every day. We slowly worked on four strips with different designs that were then cut out of the plastic canvas on day 16. One said "Joy" and had Christmas cards and envelopes, one said "Wonder" with star shapes, one said "Love" with hearts, and the fourth said "Peace" with little candle designs. I think the "Peace" one is my favorite. At this point I was wondering if we were making bookmarks because the strips by themselves looked vaguely bookmark-esque. However, the envelope for day 17 was suspiciously squishy, which didn't match a bookmark vibe.

On day 17 we were provided with new materials! This envelope included the first of 4 cloth napkins, a fresh needle, and soluble canvas material. I had also never cross stitched on fabric like this before, so this was a new challenge! I found it helpful to use my embroidery hoop, although mine was a bit bigger than necessary. It definitely took longer to stitch on than the plastic canvas material. Honestly, the hard part was attaching the soluble canvas to the napkin in the correct position without it moving around too much while you were trying to do it! But I managed to get them all done and washing off the soluble canvas was really easy. We also turned each strip into a ring and ended up with a set of four hand-stitched napkins! I put mine out on our table for Christmas day dinner, even though it was just me and the Fiance.

Overall, I had a ton of fun working on this project throughout the month! I highly recommend this advent calendar if you are looking for a holiday themed cross stitch project to work on. It seemed like beginners and seasoned cross stitchers alike were having a lovely time working on this based on the Facebook group. I thoroughly enjoyed being given the "me-time" permission slip in the box and love that they also donate to a charity called WellChild. I might have to buy myself the 2023 version because that one looked super cute as well!