:: January 2004 
Feature
Cross Stitching a New Year's Tradition
A few years ago, CyberFibres purchased a cross stitch pattern by Martha Schmidt called Scottish First-footer which depicts a Scottish Santa figure first-footing a home on New Year's Day. First-footing refers to the Scottish tradition of ensuring good luck for the coming year by having a dark-haired male be the first person to cross the threshold of your home on the first day of January. This dark-haired visitor's step would thereby be the first foot to enter your home in the new year.
Tradition has it that if this first-footer carries with him a piece of wood, you may expect to be comfortably warm all year. If he comes bringing bread, you will have plenty to eat during the year. If his sporran, forerunner of the fanny pack, has money in it, your will have no financial woes during the year. And if he bears with him a sprig of evergreen, you will enjoy good health throughout the year.
This particular sampler was more laborious to work than it appears because the plaid border area consists of various combinations of blended DMC floss colors. This threading of the needle with two different colors of floss (i.e. a single strand of one color combined with a single strand of another color) requires extra time. Designer Martha Schmidt refers to stitches produced by this technique as tweed stitches. The effect is quite nice. Ms. Schmidt also used two-toned stitches in this pattern. A two-toned stitch has the bottom of cross stitch in one color and the top of the same cross stitch in another color.
CyberFibres took poetic license with the border by sewing tiny brass jingle bells around it for a festive look. This required the finished needlework to be recessed slightly when framed, creating a shadow-box effect. The pattern is number 9 in a series produced by Needle Maid Designs, Inc. in 1997 called A World of Santas. The telephone number listed on the pattern is: (302)-239-2256