Embroidered Home

I have my next hexie embroidered for the Jenny of Elefantz project.  Its not yet a hexie here, but it is now.  I love this project, its quick and you can see results so quickly.

Go to Jenny of Elefantz for the pattern or go to her Craftsy store.

Christmas Stitch Along: Love

I did my first stitched hexie for the Jennie of Elefantz stitch along.  Yeah!  I am only two weeks late.  No worries.  I got till Christmas time.  And you know time goes so slow, I will have lots of time to get it done. Okay.  Now back to reality.  I need to get caught up with this stitchery.

If you want to get the pattern (ITS FREE!).  Just head to Jenny of Elefantz.

This is what Jenny's looks like for this week.

Felt Reindeer

My daughters reindeer.

Reindeer.

Again, I saw it on Pinterest.  Why do I love Pinterest so?  My addiction of choice. Do I choose to get sucked into the Pinterest vortex every morning while I have my coffee, getting little else done, like blog posts or emails or whatever... The hours whittle away.  Yesterday, I skipped out of my morning Pinterest ritual early.  Sitting only for about 20 minutes.  Jumped up and cleaned out my sewing room, cleaned some cabinets, made some stuff in the kitchen, put a load of laundry in the washing machine and realized only an hour had passed but yet I got so much done. 

Christmas Wall Hanging

Every Christmas I have to make something Christmas-y.  It usually happens pretty late in the game.  Its a bonus that the Christmas fabrics are on sale... No, seriously that has happened way too many times so now I clearly have enough Christmas in my stash.  Time to use it up.  If only I could find the quilt I want to make with it...  Sigh.  I actually did find it then lost it.  Crap.

Anyway this year, I made this.  They are 1 1/2 inch squares.  For the HST (half square triangles) I used the same squares and sewed a seam diagonally down the middle.  Cut one end off and that was that.  I love it.  I kind of want to make an all year one too to hang in my sewing/crafting/family computing room.

Secret Santa Was Very Good To Me

Our Quilting Bee had a Secret Santa gift exchange for those who wanted to participate.  I joined in.  These things always makes me nervous because I always worry the person will not like my gift.  I will share what I gave on the next post.  I did receive an amazing gift from someone in the Bee that I happen to be friends with.  That girl, M, knows what I like.  She knows I adore Kaffe Fasset's fabric.  She knows I love scraps and she heard me talking about my desire to do Mariners Compass Star.  Dang, she is good.

She made this adorable little duffel, that I totally need to get the pattern for.  Is she amazing or what?  Perfectly sewn!  You rock M!

And being the smart and wonderful person she is, she added chocolate.  Love it!  Mint chocolate happens to be my all time favorite chocolate combination!

Then she cut 10 inch strips down the length of her fabric and rolled them all together.  Layer cake?  Is that right?  I am still new to these terms. Aren't they luscious?

10 inch square cuts of fabrics.  Totally delicious as well.  I am so loving these.  I will have to just sit back and admire all this stuff for a while.

And finally this great pattern which I hope to work together with M on.  She has a pattern as well.  I like that M- one for you, one for me.

And let's not forget that really cute gift basket.  It's a drum shape.  Don't you love it?  I do!

O Christmas Tree

 

I made a few of these at the beginning of the month.  I wanted to post them for one of the Iron Craft challenges but I was afraid the people I was giving them to would see them.  

The original pattern called for a smaller border around and the tree ended up touching the sides. (See picture below). I did not like that so I made the border a bit bigger.  Other than that it was an extremely fun tree to put together.  This is my first time with an applique pattern and really I was surprised at how much I enjoyed it.  

Here is the other one I made.  The pattern is from Patch Abilities.  MM312 Funky Tree

Tomato Cage Christmas Tree

Saw this great idea for tomato cage trees on Pinterest.  It's P. Allen Smiths idea.  Check out his video.

It was such a great idea, I just had to do it.  He suggests using what you have lay around.  I did not have most of this stuff laying around unfortunately but in a series of good twists of fate, I managed to find stuff and do it rather cheaply.  I made these for a total of 34 dollars.  17.50 per tree.  Not too shabby.

On my way to Walmart, where I thought I'd find some good prices.  Um, not so much.  I did buy to 16.5 inch large pots for 15 dollars per pot.  Yup.  I thought this was going to rack up the dollars since I was starting here.  On the way home, swear to God, there, on the side of the road, someone was throwing away two large, stone colored pots.  They are a bit weathered but I figured who was going to notice after I got all the decorations on them.  I returned the pots that I had bought from Walmart.  Cha ching! So far zero.

Then I thought I'd check out the local Garden Factory, who tend to be a bit pricey but I needed to get dirt anyhow.  Just so happened that there pretty fancy garland was on sale for a dollar- and to think they wanted 5.99 and that other store.

The pine garland was the most expensive part of this whole deal- 12 dollars per strand.

See the phone there.  That my moment of "oh my goodness, I think I may have to go back and buy more pine garland".  I wrapped the tree tighter and everything worked out.

I still want to hang some lights on it and some decorations but this is what I have so far.

Santa's Elf

This is one of the projects I have been working on and finally completed.  An elf costume.  I had everything here at my house to make it.  I spent weeks looking for stripe tights.  I was beginning to think I might have to fashion something out of white tights but then I found these socks at KMart.  If I could have I would have done a happy dance in the aisle.  They were perfect and they were a dollar!  Whoa.  I was extremely excited.

I had so much fun making this.

No Sew Quilted Ornaments

This is a no sew project.

You take a 1 1/2 inch to 2 inch piece of fabric, depending on the size of your styrofoam ball.
Fold the square in half and then fold the corners down diagonally. Place a flat pin in the upper corner and fold down the sides again to cover the pin head. Meet the four corners at the top. Do next row, placing the squares about half way down the squares that are already place on the ball. Work until you reach the center. Turn ball around and repeat the process. Add ribbon and decorative pins.

You could also do some in other colors and place them in a glass bowl for a decorative look.