Tree Skirt!

And now that the tree skirt has been (successfully) gifted, I can show it in all it's glory. Or whatever. I'm looking forward to seeing it under the tree for which it was intended...

(floral fabric here is the bedspread showing through from underneath)

Waiting for binding

Here it is, waiting for me to stitch the binding down. Maybe I'll finish before I go to the US. Maybe not....

I hate continuous bias binding

I do, it's true. I would a million, billion times rather make French Fold binding. But with a tight circle to go around in the middle of this tree skirt, it wasn't an option.  I think I spent longer making the dang binding than stitching it to the edge of the quilt. Never again. I will find another way. Like 12 inches of bias binding attached to the rest, French Fold.

Scary moment

So, I got the Christmas Tree Skirt back from the longarmer, and it looks lovely (better photo of it later, once it's been gifted), but of course, being a tree skirt, it needed a hole in it so it could go around the tree. How scary is it to cut right down the middle of a beautifully quilted quilt?  Very, let me tell you.  Now, on to the binding!

Christmas tree skirt...the back

Had to get a bit creative with the back of the piece, as I didn't have quite enough of the deer fabric to make a big enough backing. So I threw in a couple of other Christmas fabrics I did have. It's the back; it won't really be seen anyway!

Christmas blocks assembled

Here they are, put together. I decided to set them in all directions, so it doesn't matter what way around the skirt goes.

Christmas blocks

And here they are - laid out on the floor haphazardly. Not sure about the orientation; I might make them radiate out from the centre a bit more. The centre block is plain as that's where the hole will be for the tree trunk...

A little Christmassy action

As promised, some blocks made from the Christmas fabrics shown earlier this week. Watch this space.

Upcoming project

So, my next sewing project really must be to get blocks made for a Christmas  tree skirt I want to make for someone. I want to give it in person, so it needs to be done well before Christmas. Here are the fabrics I intend to use - I'm not doing anything complicated, so the blocks shouldn't really take long. In theory.

Fabric in - Part 2

More fabric acquired at Farnham Maltings, but once again, for a specific project. This one is going to be a Christmas tree skirt. I really liked the deer fabric, so decided to make it a focus and make very simple, quite large blocks on this one. Probably just large, bordered squares. But we'll see.

A bit more Christmas sewing

Amidst all the hubub of Christmas (and with having my mother as a houseguest) there's not quite as much time to sew as I might like. But I did take a few minutes to finish putting together the blocks from these small squares of Christmas fabric. What I will do with them, I'm not sure - I'm planning a Christmassy project as a gift for someone; perhaps they will be part of that.

A little bit Christmassy

I don't have a large stash of Christmas fabrics (in fact, that's all of it, above), and most of it is pretty gentle - no really strident reds, for instance. I've made a Christmas quilt in the past and am probably not going to make another fancy one, but I decided it might be nice to do a little scrappy one, either to keep or give away. So I decided to keep it really simple, and just use squares.  I don't know how much of the fabric I'll use, I'll just make blocks until I get bored of them and see where that takes me!

Here's a start - strips, cut into squares, stitched into twos and then fours...

Advent Calendar

End of the second row - 3 more to go!

Start of the Season

I don't heavily decorate for Christmas until a bit later in the year as I don't really like to have my tree up for more than about 3 weeks max (and I always take it down on New Year's Day), but on the first of December, I do get out a small selection of Christmas themed things, including (of course), the advent calendars - I'll show that one later!  This is a Christmassy quilt, done as a block of the month project a few years back, using just Christmas scraps from whatever I had in stash.



I also have some smaller pieces I've received in swaps or as gifts










and one which isn't strictly a Christmas piece, but the colours were very Christmassy, so I decided to make it part of the seasonal stuff...

That time of year...

It's almost December, which means it's time to get out the seasonal cross-stitch pieces. I have one current project which I'm going to work on for the next week, but then, whether I finish it or not, I'm going to switch to seasonal stuff.  These three unfinished pieces will get worked on (and hopefully two of them will get finished - can't finish my angels, of course, or what would I have to complain about every year at Christmas time?)  Who knows, something else might get started as well. I do have one or two seasonal pieces waiting in my stash...

Christmas "ball"

Many years - though not necessarily every year - I use some of the Christmas cards we receive to make a Christmas card ball.  I've done this so many times now that I don't need any instructions, but if you want to make one, you need 20 circles and some fast drying glue. These instructions on the web are very good at explaining the process.  I chose the 20 cards I wanted to use - I usually pick just the ones I like the look of, but sometimes I make sure to include a special one - for instance, the angel on the yellow background was drawn by the daughter of  a friend, and the Christmas tree on a funky map was hand-made for me by a friend (Hi, Ruth!), so both of those definitely had to be in. It's also nice to have fairly flat cards, otherwise it's hard to fold them. 

After cutting the circles, I use a triangle template and a ruler and something (this year, a little screwdriver) to score some lines to make the folding easier.

Then you begin to assemble the parts - 5 each for top and bottom and a ring of 10 for the middle.  The most important thing is quick drying glue as it means you can really assemble these easily, without paperclips to hold things together while they dry, etc.

middle

top/bottom

And here we have it - a finished Christmas ball.  This year, I even remembered to write 2014 on it somewhere - I usually forget the year! I think I have about 7 or 8 of these now, in various sizes - they are a great way to remember some of the cards you've received and a lovely Christmassy decoration, without spending any money...

The rest of the Christmas cards get turned into gift tags or bases to build ATCs on - and the offcuts go into the recycling box - very little waste at all.

Advent Calendar Update, Week 2

Two Thursdays into the advent calendar now and it's beginning to fill up  - it always looks a a little blank for the first few days, but once we get well into the second row, it's much better. We've added a cardinal (it's a North American pattern - but I love the cardinal, so I'm glad to have it), an apple, a wrapped present, some Christmas lights (this wasn't original to the pattern, I drafted it myself), a drum, a snowman and a star.  What will the next week bring? The only thing I know for certain is that the Christmas tree will make an appearance, as we always put that square up on the day we put our actual tree up...

Cross stitch update

A little pre-Christmas warm up stitching before getting into the full-on big pieces - a bit of work on the Christmas Nemesis is due, as well as some work on a less frustrating Christmas piece that I put aside in January last year. And of course, I'll finish off these little guys. 

Advent Calendar Update

First showing this year!  Alex had the choice for December 1st and decided on the train, not sure if there was a reason or not - not that there has to be a reason but we often choose pictures which reflect something we are doing that day. A mitten on the 2nd as it was very cold. The heart and the wreath were just chosen because we like them, as far as I know. I chose the wreath, so I know there was no backstory to that one...

Beginning to look like Christmas?

I'm not one of these people who decorates much for Christmas in advance of the fact - our tree goes up a max of 2 weeks before (this year, it's going to be the 14th) but of course, there are some things which come out beforehand... the advent calendar of course, and just a few other things, like replacing a few of the pictures on the wall with some seasonal cross-stitches (some simply wintery, some more Christmassy)

(this one was a gift; the others are all ones I've stitched myself)

And there are a few other things - this Christmas cushion, from a secret santa exchange some years ago, for instance...

and the Christmas quilt, which I want to use for longer than just a few weeks, but not for the whole year.  There is also a set of lovely, appliqued Christmas placemats which I love, but which are too nice to use... Maybe a photo of them later in the month!