The Stitch Up

Christmas Doings

We kicked off Christmas this year right after Thanksgiving with a trip to Bethlehem, Pennsylvania for the Christkindlemarkt.  It's a pretty impressive Christmas Market with a bunch of great vendors, local wineries and distilleries, and really good food.

The coolest thing about the market though is that it's located in the old steel works factory which was pretty amazing to see.

When we got back home we got to work on decorating.  The husband took over decorating the mantle this year.  In past years I have broken out my deer collection and gone deer crazy on the mantle.  For reference, my mantle from a couple years ago:

Peaceful and enchanting right?  This year the husband designed what he called "Christmas in Deadwood":

It's a little more violent than the deer display but it's pretty awesome.  There is, in addition to the culturally inappropriate shootout, an impending bear attack.  I'm choosing to believe that all participants stop fighting and sing Christmas carols before anything really dark happens. 

I also designed an ornament pattern this year!  It's a little rough and hand drawn, but it gets the job done.  I'm still working on my adobe skills so maybe next years version will be a bit more polished.  In the mean time, the pdf for this year is here Download Cactus Ornament.

It's a pretty simple ornament - just two parts.  You can really just decorate it however you want.  I took a few pictures as I put it together:

Feel free to get someone to help you with this project -

In addition to my own creation I made ornaments for my nieces using the first of the 12 days of Christmas pattern from mmmcrafts.  This is the partridge and pear tree pattern set:

These were fun to make and the pattern was easy to follow.  I'm not sure I'll make it through all twelve of the  patterns but they are so cute I"m going to try!

I've packed in a bunch of crafts so far but I'm still hoping to knock out a table cloth this weekend.  I do tend to overload my craft schedule around Christmas but there are so many fun things to make I just want to do it all.  

Of course my Christmas preparations were not complete until I broke out all my Christmas salt and pepper shakers.  I did get a little crazy and decorate my little display case to give it some extra holiday pizazz.

Now I'm just down to sending out cards and doing some holiday baking.  Putting this all down in one spot makes me feel kind of productive - but I'm ready for a little relaxing by the tree.  

I hope everyone's holiday is wonderful and peaceful.  Merry Christmas!

 

 

Mod Sampler - Free Pattern

I have been talking about this pattern for awhile and finally have it in a form that I think people can use.  

This is the finished version:

I'm still back and forth on whether to put a few french knots or other stitches in the orange flower but overall I like how it all came out.  I made the sampler initially for the RSN 21st Century Sampler competition last year.  It was a fun exercise.  I'm still trying to figure out the best methods for designing my own patterns as I'd like to make and share a few more of them.

For this pattern I wanted to give it a mid-century look.  I used a mod font and colors and paired it with a sentiment that I thought expressed my feelings about sewing:  that I use the lessons from my grandmother and great aunt and mom and others to create what I hope are new and interesting projects.  I love so much of the tradition of sewing, quilting, embroidery, knitting and crocheting.  And I get so excited about the new techniques and ideas that people are coming up with now.  It's a fun time to be creative!

The sampler pattern is here:   

Download RSN Contest Pattern FIXED w_copyright

I hope lots of people will download and stitch it up - please leave a link in the comments if you do whip it up - I'd love to see it!

Hope everyone's Fall is lots of fun so far!
 

 

Jane Austen-y, Little Women-y Christmas Pattern

I am officially in the Christmas spirit!  We broke out the decorations last night, cranked up the Christmas tunes, downed some Gluvein and made like elves.  But while the house wasn't really Christmasy before last night, I was actally doing some Christmas crafts - even before Thanksgiving.

This year the craft is felt ornaments.  I should have been making felt ornaments for Christmas a LONG time ago.  They are so fun to make and they are finished quickly so I can knock a few out each week.  I've been making some of Alicia Paulson's patterns which are so cute.  I've also found some other patterns around the web that people have been nice enough to share.  There are so many cute ideas out there.  I was inspired by the patterns everyone was sharing and also by the Feeling Stitchy December Stitch-a-Long to try my hand at making my own felt Christmas ornament pattern.

I love just about everything Jane Austen related and I also like to watch Little Women at Christmas time.  I realize these are two different eras, but the whole big skirts, big bonnet, fur muff winter look was what I was going for with my first ornament pattern.

I made a very basic pdf pattern,  Feel free to click the link and download it.  Just cut two of each of the pattern pieces and you're on your way.

I decided to go with a red dress for Christmas time, but I think you could use any color and it would be fun.  I also think you could replace the muff with a Christmas gift or wreath or something else.

First step, put a little glue on the top of the neck, place the bonnet on top and press the pieces together with your fingers. Then, blanket stich on the bonnet to the neck.

Next - a little more glue on the bottom of the neck piece, place the dress on top and finger press the two together.  Then, blanket stitch the dress onto the neck.

You may have to make some tiny stitch as I realize the neck area is pretty small.

Next step - a little fabric glue on the back of the arm piece and finger press it into place, then blanket stitch around the arm.

And the final piece!  The fur muff.  Place a little glue on the muff and press it into place on the arm and dress - the location is indicated on the pattern.  Blanket stitch this in place. I used white thread here.

And now you're ready for the fun part.  I think you could do whatever you want to decorate her dress and hat.  A big bold embroidery stitch, applique on some fabric.  It's also a great chance to use up scraps of ribbon or lace that you have lying around.  Go nuts!

Once you're finished, you repeat the whole thing on the other side.  Place the two sides together and blanket stitch around, leaving a small section in the bottom of the skirt to use to stuff with batting.  I changed thread color at the neck and the muff.  You don't have to stuff the skirt, but it makes it puff out nicely and look a bit more like she's got a wad of petticoats under there.

A little close up on the details of my ornament:

I hope other people have fun with this pattern.  Please remember it is being shared for personal use only, not commercial use of the pattern or the ornaments made from the pattern.  If you do make up the Jane Austen-y pattern please leave a link or a photo in the comments - I'd love to see what other people do with it!

Merry Christmas!

Mom Day Crafting

Every year I try to get my mom flowers - usually a corsage for Mothers Day.  This year I decided that I'd like to make a corsage that wouldn't wilt - a fabric corsage.  I found several really cute tutorials around the web, but the one that I thought would work best for me was at Cool Mummy.  Of course, I couldn't do any project without some embroidery, so I used the basic idea of Cool Mummy's flower and added some stitching with a couple of free hand patterns.

I started off with 4 inch circles.  I transferred the patterns I drew using transfer paper.  The pattern is only drawn on the top half of the circle as each circle is basically a front and back of each petal.

I actually did a few with just the top half of the circle as my plan was to use a different fabric for the backing.  

As this corsage is for my mom, I stitched the pattern onto some light lavender fabric which is my mom's favorite color.  I found some coordinating fabric for the backing and drew a few 4" circles on that as well.

I cut these circles in half and cut out the half circles I'd embroidered.

This left me with 5 half circles to be stitched together. 

 I put the right sides together, stitched them and then flipped them right side out.

I then used a running stitch on the bottom of each "petal" to close the bottom and string all of the petals together.

When all the petals are pulled together it looks like this:

A simple slip stitch brings the two sides together.  This is a great time to take out your button collection to put a little "bling" in the middle of the flower.

I picked a sparkly lavender button for my Mom's corsage:

Cool Mummy does a very nicely finished backing on her corsage and I would recommend going and checking out her tutorial because it looks great.  I was in a little bit of a rush to get this in the mail so I just stitched the safety pin on the back.

And that's my first tutorial!  If you'd like to try this yourself, feel free to use the patterns to make something all your own!

I've started another corsage using some fun print fabric and another of the patterns.  

I love the colors and I'll post the finished corsage when I'm done!   Hope you've like this project.  It's been fun to share it and I will do more in the future.