Christmas Sewing 2011

I can't believe it's been just about a month since my last post. Going back to work has totally kicked my butt and taken away ALL of my free time.

My dad has been having some health problems, so that's brought added stress to my already-maxed-out stress level. Unfortunately, he hasn't been able to get up and enjoy the Christmas tree in their living room, so my brother brought over a little tree for my dad to have in his room. We needed some ornaments for it, so I made a couple yesterday. These were so simple and quick to whip up. I'm tempted to make some more as gift tags.

I used photo fabric, batting, fabric scraps, and decorative string. I printed out some family photos in black and white, then layered the photo fabric with the batting and scraps. Then I used pinking shears to trim the edges and sewed in the string for hanging on the tree. I think they turned out pretty cute, and I'm sure my dad will love being able to see his progeny's faces smiling back at him.



I only made eight ornaments so not all of my family is represented. I come from a family of six kids. There are 35 of us, including my siblings and their spouses, 18 grandkids, plus four great-grandkids. Looks like I'll need to make more for next year.





Also for this year, I made an advent calendar. I had one growing up and I wanted to continue the tradition with my little family. I bought this Sherri Beri (sp?) fabric a year and a half ago. The vintage feel of it reminds me of my sweet Grandma Cole, who passed away when I was 16. This advent calendar was made in her memory.

I bought a panel of whatever this line is called. I asked the mister's grandma to embroider the numbers 1-25 on each square. Then I cut them out, backed them with interfacing, added fabric for the pocket tops/trims, and zig zag stitched them to some solid white. Then I added a border to the top and bottom because it made it look more like a calendar to me.



On the back, I just sewed strips from the other fabrics in the line that I bought. I added a little slot for a dowel to slide into for hanging it on the wall. I quilted dense straight lines between the pockets horizontally and vertically. The binding is scrappy from leftover pieces. And I tied a ribbon to the dowel for hanging. I think I'll need to do something else next year because the calendar was so heavy with little goodies in each pocket that the ribbon got pretty stretched out now that Christmas is only a couple days away.



Anyway, that's it for me. I'll be back after Christmas to review the year and show you what I made for gifts this year. I hope you all have/had a merry Christmas, happy Hanukkah, and joyous Kwanza!