Mike and I are currently in France, as many of you have seen via my other social media channels. We came over to look at a house in the town of Josselin in Central Brittany to see if it is the right place for us. It definitely is, and while there is a lot to do before the home is actually ours, we have started the process. The photo shows the chateau located in Josselin.
You may be familiar with the Christmas Markets that happen throughout Europe. Many towns throughout France are having their Christmas Markets over the next few weekends and there are ads for them everywhere. This really has me thinking about Christmas.
I don’t have any new Christmas-themed releases this year, so I thought I would share my previous Christmas releases, starting with my Vintage Christmas Alphabet. This is a series of 11 chart packs, each containing either two or three letters of the alphabet. The size of each chart is around 60×60 and they all use three DMC colors – 498, 729 and 319. Here are photos of just a few of them.
If you are interested in any of these designs, you can find them as paper patterns at your favorite LNS or ONS or as PDFs on my Etsy shop at Jan Hicks Creates
Another set of smalls that I really love is my Peaceful Christmas Smalls. I wanted to have smalls with the feeling of winter that you can display throughout the holiday and winter season. I love how these turned out!
I came across a vintage Christmas card a few years ago that I fell in love with and decided I needed to reinvent it as a cross stitch pattern. This is Peace Christmas Candles. I felt it was important to also include a design for Hanukkah, since candles are such an important part of that celebration.
For a few years, I did a collaboration with Maria Kutzner, based on our favorite Christmas songs. I designed a pattern and she made project bags, scissor fobs, needle minders and more to complete the coordinated set. These sets were a huge hit and the designs are some of my best sellers.
Enjoy and happy Holiday stitching!
Awe Jan, I look forward to your new adventures in France and how this process actually happened.
The Christmas projects are all lovely and definitely will be difficult to choose just one!
Take care, Kathy from Indiana.
Thank you, Kathy! The process is not going to be easy, but it will be worth it!
Your retirement has me so envious!!! I have already told me husband I am going to your first retreat. We just got back from first trip to Italy and the We have been bitten by the European bug and already planning for London and Paris🎉
On my bucket list is def visiting those Christmas markets… hope you send some pics of those❤️
You travels through the US have always been inspiring and I always show my husband the beginning parts of your videos and he compliments you on your very calming voice.
Congratulations on your new venture??? Does your husband help you or does he plan on having a side hustle while you pursue this awesome dream???
Cindy G
Thank you, Cindy! So glad you are interested in my retreats! I can’t wait to attend some of the Christmas Markets!
My husband definitely helps me. He handles a lot of the financial side of things as well as with tech things. You might have noticed the strange opening paragraphs in this newsletter. I am trying to get things more automated and attempted this without his help. The result was that very strange mess at the beginning. Ah well, live and learn!
Glad to see your Facebook message today. France ?? Can you only imagine.
glad to see your Facebook today. France!??? Can you only imagine
Beautiful place to live ✨️
Jan,
Europe is a wonderful place to live, I’m sure you could have a lovely life in Brittany. All us Europeans could visit you for a retreat! I have meet so many Americans who would love to live I Ireland in recent times.
Cheers
Marion
I hope to meet many of my European friends over time! So much to see and do, and of course, we’ll be traveling around as well!
Oh congratulations on finding a new home and all the new adventures that awaits….will miss you stateside but hope when you make your travels back this way I would love to see you again. Can’t wait to see your new designs and the new inspirations from the local culture and country side. Wishing the two of you Happy Holidays!
Thank you, Denette! It is going to be exciting and stressful at the same time! Lots of adventures to come!
I also lived overseas for over 10 years, what an adventure. Thank you for bringing us along.