The Exemplary 2025
3rd Place, Professional Original

When designing these candles, I wanted to use a bell theme to tie the three candles together. I also wanted them to be Christmasy if I stitched them in a traditional red/gold/green colorway, but versatile enough to be beautiful in another colorway like blue/silver/aqua. I also wanted to go for elegant, not whimsical.

Each 3-D candle is approximately 3½” in diameter and they vary in height from 4” to 8”; they are stitched on Victorian Red 18-count mono canvas. The finishing adds a color-matched, battery-operated tea candle, set in the top of each stitched candle to create a special glow just as a real candle would.

The large candle primarily has vertical design panels and has a stitched bell motif for the full (top-to-bottom) center panel. When designing the side panels a lot of thought was put into the patterns. The patterns are mirror images from left to right. The patterns in bands 1 and 9 and again in bands 3 and 7 are additionally mirror images from top to bottom. These four bands have related stitches with gold highlights. Bands 2, 4, 6, & 8 are variations of Laid Filling Patterns with the gold thread as a major part of the design. Band 5, in the middle, is a solid red to balance the bands.

The medium candle has a gorgeous, stitched bell pattern for the upper-center panel along with a bell darning pattern in two of the side panels. The side panels were designed to be very subtle since the large bell motif has many stitches and threads. This medium candle has a slightly horizontal feel to it with the large top horizonal areas done with vertical panels, then the two horizontal bands at the bottom.

The small candle brings the bell motif with small gold bell sequins and has an overall diagonal design motif with repeating patterns.