Home for the Holidays Poster

A cross-stitch sampler photographed close enough to count the threads. Home for the Holidays is worked in red script across a linen ground, above a winter scene with a wicker sleigh, a candlelit tree, wrapped gifts and snow-laden firs running back to pale mountains. A tartan border in red, green and navy frames the whole panel. Every element is built from visible stitches, so the picture holds its handmade grain at any size. It belongs to the tradition of things made in November to be hung in December. Count the stitches and the scale shifts: what reads as a landscape is a few thousand crosses in coloured thread.

This is a print for a hallway, a stairwell or a living room wall that changes with the season, and the tartan border means it needs no help from a mat. Red, green and navy place it firmly in Christmas, so hang it where that is welcome and store it the rest of the year, or let it stay as a piece of needlework. Dark wood frames suit the plaid; black is too hard. On canvas the stitch texture and the linen weave meet, which suits the subject better than paper does.