Christmas Ornaments

I guess I've probably won the Bad Blogger Award, for having let so much time go by since my last post.  Sorry 'bout that.  Let's just say that the holidays kind of took over my life!

Since we travelled this Christmas, and weren't at home, MisterStitches and I didn't have a Christmas tree.  But I wanted to display some of my tree ornaments, so I found this nifty ornament holder at Crate and Barrel.

It worked very well for my purposes.  See, it has a little "scalloped" edge where the 

ornament hangers go.

I put a lot of hand-made ornaments on it, and filled in with some simple Christmas balls.  My goal is to have only hand-made ornaments for this display.

Following are two precious ornaments brought home from school by my two kids, many years ago.  The one with DaughterStitches's photo on it says 1989, so she would have been 7 years old, probably in first grade.  Now DaughterStitches teaches in her own classroom, sometimes first grade, sometimes second, sometimes both. 

I believe these two ornaments came home the same year, so SonStitches would have been 5 years old, and in Transitional Kindergarten.  I love these two ornaments.

This next ornament is one I started a long time ago and just finished this year.  I found a picture of it on the internet and made up my own version.

One year I made several little mitten ornaments from felted wool.  Some of the wool came from an old pleated skirt of mine (not this red one!).

Several years ago I blogged about this reindeer ornament made from a wine cork.  I think he's awfully cute, don't you?

A Christmas tree ornament made from a kit a few years ago.

The following two ornaments are ones I made when we were on a trip to Hawaii.  The first is a sea turtle (honu).  They are both made from luahala leaves.

What fun ornaments have you made in your life?  Or which homemade ornaments do you have that you treasure?

Some Embroidery Work

I recently finished this small wall hanging.  It is a pattern that I bought from Jenny of Elefantz.  She has loads of great designs.  You should check out her blog and website.  Jenny specializes in beautiful designs which often combine applique and embroidery. This particular wall hanging I made is only 11" by 12".  It is one of four little wonky houses in the set.

The light blue border is one of my go-to fabrics lately, by HarmonyArt Organic Fabric.  Maybe it's just handy for me, but I seem to be using it in quite a few projects lately.

Here is a close-up of some of the embroidery.  As you can see, it is quite detailed.  I have to say this was quite a bit of fun to do.

A Christmas Tree Shirt for GranddaughterStitches

I just finished a new little Christmas shirt for GranddaughterStitches.  I found the great tutorial here.  (Thanks, VixenMade!)  Since she gave such a thorough tutorial, I won't bother to repeat it here.

I bought a simple long-sleeved t-shirt, some green lace, and sequins.  I used WonderUnder to fuse the lace to the shirt.

Then I sewed all the way around the edges to secure it before adding the sequins.

I used invisible thread to sew on the sequins.  Kind of a pain to work with, but the stitches hardly show at all!

DaughterStitches told me that GranddaughterStitches loved receiving the shirt in the mail.  She really likes all the "jewels" on the tree, but can't decide which color she likes best.  Oh, such problems!

Christmas Decorations

Yesterday, on December 1st, was Christmas decorating day at our house.  But the first decoration has been up since last week, when GranddaughterStitches (and her mom!) were visiting us for Thanksgiving.

MisterStitches and I found this cute little creche made by Playmobile, and thought it would be great for GranddaughterStitches.  I mean, kids always want to play with the creche characters, right?  And we usually respond by saying, "No, no.  Don't touch."  Well, this is a creche that she is supposed to play with!

We all had fun putting the whole scene together, assembling the stable, and fixing all the small details. Above you can see the three wise men, part of their camel, and Joseph's donkey.

GranddaughterStitches, for some reason, liked having the little lamb on the roof, along with the doves!

Wall Hangings For Festival of Trees

A few months ago a friend of mine brought me a simple wall hanging.  It had been made by wrapping several strips of fabric around a stretcher bar frame, and stapling the fabric to the back.  She asked me if I could make some of these for Festival of the Trees.  FOTT is an arts fair where our quilt guild (and many other entities) sell their goods to the public.  (It is always a big deal in the small community where I live.)  

So I ended up making 12 of these wall hangings, using mostly decorator-weight fabrics.  It was actually fun, just sifting through many different fabric samples and sewing strips into larger pieces.  I used 9" by 11" stretcher bars and my trusty staple gun.

These little framed pieces can be hung either horizontally or vertically with simply two little brads.

The two below could be sold as a set.

Then I also made a few with Christmas fabrics.

I don't think a tutorial is necessary.  It's a pretty simple process.  You could whip up a few of your own for some of your holiday decorations.

Progress on My HST Baby Quilt

I recently posted about this baby quilt here.  And I fixed it up a bit, with some quarter square triangles on the top and bottom.

I found a great orange batik for the inner lining, and a really pretty soft light blue for the outer border. The blue is an organic fabric from HarmonyArt. It's actually more blue than the photo shows.  Poor lighting.  Poor photographer! 

I can't wait to start quilting on this one.  It would be easy to follow the diagonal lines, but I think I'd like to practice my free-motion quilting.  I'll keep you posted!

Another Crocheted Baby Afghan

I finished another crocheted baby afghan.  Almost totally completed in cars and airplanes!

This time I used a variegated yarn, which gave me the design you see below.

Pastel yellow, pastel blue and some white.  It has a little sparkle in the yarn.  

Very soft and nice to work with.