Sunday, December 20, 2020

Christmas decorating fun

I love seeing our Christmas tree full of ornaments bought, inherited, received and made over the years. It's also the time when those Christmas runners, placemats and wall hangings get to come out and shine.

Adding to our Christmas decorations

Each year I try to make a little something for the tree or the house. I found the tutorial for the Christmas bell - the bell was supposed to be made of "sheer paper cloth" but I used organza backed with light stabilizer instead. The stabilizer gave the organza a crispness without removing the translucence. For the three-sided bell I used organza with dots and hearts on two of the sides and then embroidered the third side with a star. I hand-stitched the sides together and added the bell through it. If you're interested, the link to the tutorial is in Related links below.

Three sided Christmas bell

The embroidered side of
the Christmas bell

I also made a snow frame. I started with a meditation stitched piece that I made last year, added an extra piece of fabric to make it wide enough and then added a couched snowman, snow and extra stars.

Snow frame with Christmas tree and snowman

For the Out of the Box Fibre Artist group, I made a Christmas postcard. It was dropped off on November 30 and should have arrived to it's new home by now.

The postcard was 4" x 6". The background is a fluffy fabric that I hand dyed in very light green. I used a pink cheese cloth to outline the tree and then couched some green chenille yarn. I used a Murano star bead for the top. Behind it I attached a small piece of yellow silk to add a little pop of colour. There are also many seed beads within the tree.

In the background, I used a white silk thread to embroider the snowflakes. I like the subtleness, like an impression of flakes. Instead of cardstock, I attached interfacing and then added a white backing.

Stylized Christmas tree postcard

Christmas postcard

Decorating the workplace

It's so different from previous years. This was my office in 2018. My colleague and I had a great time decorating with things that I had brought from home.

Adding colour to our
workspace (2018)

Decorating the office plant (2018)

This is my present workplace - our dining room.

Working from home, in my dining room (2020)

It certainly is a lot cozier and the commute is very short 😊 I also love that Chevy is always near by!

What I learned

Chevy in my studio.

I loved the idea of making the bell decorations but once I was done, although I liked it, I didn't feel the need to make more - which is a good thing because I still have way too many projects on the go!
The snow frame is on my window ledge in my studio. It's so lovely to look at while I'm writing this post. The couched yarn and backing makes it just a little too thick for the frame so I had to tape around it. Since it's for my office, I don't mind but I'll have to remember this if I ever make more as gifts.
I'm really not missing my physical workplace. It's so much easier to concentrate in my quiet dining room. You can see that I'm not trying to work in my studio - that would be a recipe for disaster...just too many distractions there 😊.
Today I took pictures of my studio - it's pretty much finished. I'm hoping to write the post this week. Here's a teaser....

Free Motion Mavericks

Welcome to week 268 of Free Motion Mavericks.

Free Motion Mavericks

I've been pretty quiet on-line and off, just getting through these winter days. I can feel daylight lasting slightly longer, which is wonderful.

I did some meditation stitching. Here are my last three blocks.

This was an old t-shirt that was used as a cleaning rag. The last time that I dyed fabric, I still had dye left over, so I threw in a few extras. This one one of them. You can see the image of dried flowers from the original t-shirt design.

Impressions of dried flowers

I wasn't very happy with the piece I created for "Put a heart on it", Challenge 11-2 of Project Quilting, so while I was playing with scraps, I cut these two felt pieces into a heart shape and stitched them together. The felt and background are scraps from my Connections and Intersections piece, made for the Connected by a Thread challenge for the Out of the Box Fibre Artists Group. I really like this mini piece😊!

Mended heart

The velour fabric was also in that last batch of dyed fabrics. I made a couple of the chain stitched lines and then found this lovely Murano glass bead. It was fun adding these quiet chains to the piece.

Star light

What I learned

These little meditation stitched pieces are lovely to make. I never take more than a couple of minutes to grab what I need and start stitching.
I do get bored when doing the same stitch for long, so some of then, like Impressions of dried flowers take a couple of sessions to make. I don't start a new piece until the last one is finished.
I re-discovered my pinking sheers - they are so much fun 😊

Page titles

Sunday, December 20, 2020

Christmas decorating fun

Adding to our Christmas decorations

Decorating the workplace

Thursday, February 20, 2020

Free Motion Mavericks

First Quilt-Along