The Stitch Journal

by Nicola Stanton

A Year of Tiny Leaves

Stitching leaves is just so much fun! At least I think so and it appears you do too! I recently posted this photo of a tree I created that had enough leaves on it for every day of the year. The response was overwhelming – so many of you it appears would love to stitch this as well. Rather than wait and release it once it is complete at the start of 2025, I thought it would be much more exciting to bring you along for the journey since lots of you want to join in. It will be so exciting to see all the different variations we can come up with from different stitchers. This little seed of an idea has been niggling away ever since we did the October ‘Stitch a Leaf a Day‘ challenge. I love stitching leaves and thought it would be really fun to try and create a tree with enough leaves on it to fill a year! I didn’t realise however that this wasn’t as easy as it might seem. The tree design itself needed to fit within the parameters of my printing and transferring limitations which I wasn’t convinced was going to be big enough to accommodate that many leaves and still resemble a beautiful tree! Fast forward over a year (and many failed attempts at designing this tree) and I finally created a beautiful tree with lots of lovely leaves to stitch. About the Project: This tree is a ‘work in progress’. I am stitching the tree throughout 2024 by way of a leaf a day! There are 366 leaves on the tree (2024 is a leap year!) Tiny Leaves = Beautiful stitching Believe it or not each of the leaves is hand drawn so they vary a little bit in shape and size. Generally though they are about 1cm across. Don’t be fooled by their minature size – they are perfect for all different stitches. This project is completely achievable for everyone – all you need to do is stitch one leaf a day.   Make the tree your own You can choose any colours you want for your tree. I wanted mine to be a variety of greens so had a look in my stash and pulled out any I thought would vary from as well as compliment each other. Here’s what I ended up with. You also need a colour for the trunk and branches. There are lots of ideas you can use to choose your colour palette – monthly temperature, seasonal hues, bright rainbow, Autumn tree with Oranges, reds and yellows, you could make this a family tree and choose a colour for each month based on each persons favourite!   Stitching the Leaves Since Stitchdoodles is all about stitching lots of different stitches – I couldn’t resist choosing various different stitches and then repeating these randomly throughout. You could just go with one stitch and it would still look stunning. Here’s a close up of my January leaves. In this little batch I have stitched French knots, Split stitch, chain stitch, satin stitch, trellis, fishbone stitch, fly stitch, back stitch. I played around with the colours and mixed and matched as I went. Stitching the Trunk For the tree trunk and branches, I am going to be stitching those as and when I get a bit of extra time. So far I have back stitched around the edges and started filling with chain stitch. Would you like to stitch a Beautiful Tree? You can find the following available in the shop now… PDF Template – print out and transfer to the fabric yourself.Pre Printed Fabric – all those leaves are already done for you – all you have to do is stitch! Make sure you show off your Trees in the Happy Stitching FB group – it will be so exciting seeing them all start to grow with lots of lovely stitches through the year!