Christmas Cardinal Needlepoint Cookies

Um, holy smokes! Those are beautiful!

wauw!! how do you start such pattern??

Hi, Taartmama, I start with piping the white grid, of course. I used an actual needlepoint pattern (one by Donna Vermillion Giampa for Sudberry House) to do the bird; then the less difficult shapes (leaves, flowers, branches) were done by sight - I just tried to lay in elements around the bird to help frame it. The dotted patterns in the back were laid last, around all the other elements, by counting off blocks in the grid. I used 16 colors in these; the shading is a little more obvious in person!

This is amazing...sometimes you hear people say ''this is way to beautiful to eat''...your cookies are way to nice to be eaten!!!

those are unbelievable, beautiful work, can't imagine what you would have to charge for a cookie like that!

WOW.....I am speechless! I don't think I could even do the grid pattern lol ;)

This is just unbelievable.

Unbelievable! I had a similar pattern I wanted to put on a cake of a needlepoint covered sewing basket. I sure am glad I waited! Yours is so much more beautiful! It must have taken a lot of time! Thanks so much for the tips.

Thanks, everyone! I put a few hours into each of the larger (6 inch) round cookies. Probably only the very well-to-do would pay what I would have to charge for something like this. Did it more as a way to stretch my own skills.

Beautiful!!! I think you created a new method to decorate cookies.

Very pretty!

Atena, I wish I could claim the invention of this method, but I don't think so! There are a number of other (primarily Eastern European) cookie artists who do similar type fill-in-the-grid styles. I haven't seen too many try to translate actual needlepoint patterns, but . . ; lots of people doing beautiful, more geometric, repeating patterns.

This is the most beautiful thing I have ever seen in cake decorating! You are truly remarkable

just simply amazing.....I would try that but just lookin at yours I know that I can't do that

Wow!! beautiful cookies! Julia could you explain please what do you mean by actual needlepoint pattern? what tip did you use? I just love them!!

Simply Fantastic!

Hi, Charmed, Thanks - and good question! I downloaded a needlepoint pattern from patternsonline.com (one by Donna Vermillion Giampa for Sudberry House), and used it as a guide to create the bird form. So I basically counted off holes in my icing grid and filled them with colored icing the way the pattern suggested one do it with colored thread! (Though I dropped a color or two.) Then I filled in the other forms (leaves, etc.) around the birds, basically by sight. I don't use a tip for this work. I do almost 100-percent of my straight (untextured) piping with a parchment cone (cornet) with a barely perceptible (much less than 1/16-inch) hole cut in the tip. I have better control with a smaller cornet than I do with a clunky pastry bag - plus, I hate cleaning out bags and tips!

these are so beautiful! you are insanely talented!

Thanks Julia for all the info!

amazing. You must have a very steady hand. How do you manage to pipe such straight neat lines that are so close together?!