Today has been the Seata AGM and first meeting of the new programme.

For many years the group has decorated a Christmas Tree at Scunthorpe Festival of Christmas Trees, which has very much become an annual event. Ruth has booked the spot and decorated the tree for several years now, and this year she had booked within 5 minutes of receiving the booking form! If only I could be so organised!

Ruth had brought a box of goodies for us to use for our Dala horses, or to add to our own bits and pieces: felt, patterns, templates, trims, and a whole herd of horsey samples which were passed round as examples of what we might do. These two finished ones are hers.

After rummaging through the pile of assorted coloured pieces of threads, I opted to work in a bright green for the body, and two shades of sage green for the saddle and mane. A suggestion of not cutting out the horses until they were stitched was soon passed on around the group. Once the template had been drawn round and the mane and saddle cut out, I started blanket stitching them on with a single strand of orange.

Once I’d done that I used a rusty red rayon thread for fly stitching down the legs.

Then some orange lazy daisy stiches on the saddle …….

……. and mane, with pistal stitches in between in the rayon thread. This is as far as I’d got by the time we packed up; both sides are the same. It needs eyes at least before I cut them out , stitch them together and stuff it. I deliberately chose colours that are not Christmassy, as I don’t want to think about Christmas just yet!

Thank you for all your hard work , Ruth, it’s been a good start to the new programme. This is another one of hers that was on our table as inspiration.