Merry Christmas to Me!

Guess what I found under my Christmas tree?  Yes!  A sewing machine!  It was a complete surprise and I'm so happy to have a sewing machine of my own.  Now I can stop kidnapping my mother's!  It's computerized and much fancier then what I'm used to so it will take a while to learn all of what it can do. But for now, I've figured out how to wind a bobbin, thread it and sew in a straight line.  Fortunately the store it came from offers free classes to new machine owners.  I'm looking forward to learning a lot.

 

The machine also came with a lot of accessories that will require even more learning.  I mean what exactly do all these feet do?

Hopefully the classes will cover crazy feet as well.

Learn About Pockets

One of my favourite bloggers, LiEr at ikatbag, recently did a series on how to sew 25 different pockets.  More kinds of pockets then I knew existed!  25 pockets that were made into an amazing learning quilt which is LiEr's latest giveaway.  And even if you don't win you get to learn how to make 25 pockets, so really it's a win-win situation!  Go and check it out - this post lists all the pocket learning links.

Decorating for Christmas

For my last post before Christmas I thought I'd show you my Christmas decorations.  First up, trees!

Normally I love traditional red, green & gold for Christmas but this multicolour tree is awesome too!

Then there are a couple of little trees, the green one has working lights!

More trees march along the top of a closet.  They are made from old magazines and this pattern.

My JOY embroidery and garland from IKEA add a festive touch to a picture display.

When I ran out of room to hang ornaments I stuffed them in bowls.  Rather effective I think!

Wishing you all a Merry Christmas!

Christmas Embroidery

I don't remember where the inspiration for this Christmas embroidery came from - maybe a card in a store - but I am so happy with how it turned out!  At first I thought I would put loops of ribbon in the top to make them into ornaments but I forgot to on the first one and in the end I like them better this way.  Nice to decorate something other then the tree and easier to keep the letters in order (really, how was I planning to hang letters in a row on a tree?).  After I finished "JOY" I liked it so much I made "NOEL" as well!

 

Would you like to make a set too?  Or maybe put it on your to do list for next year? Here are the patterns I used.  Print on 8 1/2 x 11 it will make letters just under 4 inches tall.

I'm not an embroiderer usually so I think I went about this the wrong way by cutting the letters out of felt first and then embroidering them.  I'm not going to give specific instructions, just some guidelines on what I did which you can follow or not!

• I used white wool felt for the letters, cut two of each letter you are making
• Embroider the leaves and berries on each letter, I just did it on one side but you could do both.
• I used green thread for the lazy daisy/backstitched leaves, red thread for the french knot berries and white thread to whipstitch or blanketstitch the pieces together
• Add a little stuffing to the letters as you go (much easier then trying to get in all those nooks and crannies at the end)

So you can see how I did the embroider I took a picture of the "O" up close.

Happy stitching!

Star Ornament Tutorial

This is one of the projects I came up with to use all the lovely chiyogami paper I got at the Paper Place.  I think it would look great with scrapbooking patterned paper, gift wrap or coloured foil so no worries if you don't have any chiyogami on hand!

What you need:

1. Paper (I'm using chiyogami here but use what you have)
2. Gold thread
3. Seed beads to compliment your paper (these are size 8/0 seed beads)
4. Star punch (or use scissors and cut your own)
5. Glue stick (not pictured, I use UHU)

Step 1:
Cut a piece of gold thread about 14" long.  Fold in half and tie a knot around the 3 1/2" mark.

Step 2: 
Thread 5 beads onto the doubled thread, slide up to the knot and tie another at the other end of the beads.  A little finicky but it doesn't need to be too tight to the beads.  Snip off the excess thread and set aside.

Step 3:
Punch (or cut) 5 stars from your paper and fold them all in half.

Step 4:
Glue the stars, wrong side together, to join them.  Stop before you join the final halves.  Hopefully the pictures makes sense.

Step 5:
Before gluing the last halves together lay the gold thread in the creases of the paper.  The fold in the thread will be the top of the ornament and the beads will be the bottom.  Line the knot up to be at the bottom of the star.  Then glue the last bit together and you're done!

Hang and enjoy!

 

Christmas Garland Again

I got a picture of my wish star garland in it's current home and thought I'd pop in to share it.  If you'd like to make your own take a look at the tutorial over at Folding Trees.

I had a couple days off this week and got shopping, baking, wrapping and card sending checked off the list!  After baking day I was definitely feeling overloaded on butter and sugar (you have to sample as you go... quality control and all that!) but now I'm good to go again.  Good thing too because there are boxes and boxes of treats to eat!  Wish I could share some with you all!  Since I haven't figured out how to send food via the internet I thought I'd share a couple tutorials instead.  Check back later this week!

Great Katazome (Paper) Giveaway!

The Paper Place blog is holding a giveaway where you could win 169 pieces of gorgeous katazome paper.  Wouldn't this be a great present under your tree?

To enter comment on their post before December 12.  Good luck!