Christmas Stitching

For Christmas 2023 I made the little ones Mill Hill "Snow Globes" ornaments.

It was time to make Vinnie's "Santa's Treasure Sack", designed by Helen Stubbings of Hugs 'n' Kisses, with machine embroidery Gingerbread Men designs instead of the hand-stitched embroideries.

 

Christmas Sewing

There wasn't a lot of sewing for Christmas presents this year - hand-made ornaments for the little ones 

and a special Santa's Treasure Sack for Hugo (designed by Hugs n Kisses).

The elf fabric is the top row is from Spoonflower and the elves in the middle row are machine embroidered.

Our littlest sweetheart's name has been added to The Wish Quilt

and Nikki Tervo made a name button so that I could add Vinnie to the stocking swag.

Also made each of them a machine-embroidered felt gingerbread person.

Bradley Street Cot Quilt

This could be the third cot quilt I've made using this design - I love it because it really shows off the fabrics and 'Safari Life' is such a fun, cute range using non-traditional baby colours.

Backing

Karen used my favourite Clouds design for the quilting and Mum stitched down the binding.  The quilt is going to a baby due in a couple of months.

Christmas decorating is pretty much finished - I'll take some photos in the next few days.  A lovely friend sent me a new hand-stitched decoration for the tree - thank you Shez.  It was such a surprise.

Friday and Saturday nights were spent wrapping presents - I'm pretty slow and miss my resident present-wrapper (Jenni).

John hung the shelves in The Parlour on the weekend, so the room is coming together.

There has been a little bit of hand-stitching.  A new stocking for the swag

and some hardanger decorations.  Such a long time since I've done any hardanger - was a bit stressful cutting the threads.

Not much machine sewing happens at this time of year but I found some time to sew the last 16 star blocks for the "Hide and Seek" SAL - I'm a couple of weeks behind now.

Work finishes up for the year on Friday and I'm definitely looking forward to that and having lots of time to spend with my family.

MERRY CHRISTMAS!

Another Bradley Street Cot Quilt

This sweet cot quilt is the third "Bradley Street" cot-sized quilt I've made and is for Jenni's best friend's baby boy.  The quilt was finished last November.  Such a great design to show off beautiful fabrics.

The fabric is called "Guess How Much I Love You" and is designed by the illustrator of the book.  The colours are so soft and gentle.  I've bought more of this fabric to use for our new little sweetheart, who will be here before we know, and also some of the baby girl colours.

I asked Karen to use my favourite clouds quilting again - love this design for cot quilts.

Found the cutest gift bag that suited the colours so well.

Back to work last week - it's always a shock to the system to start a new work year after all the fun of Christmas and New Year.  ChaCha came to stay over on Friday night then came to the basketball with me on Saturday afternoon - it was fun having her there. Sunday plans changed about three times and I spent most of the day packing away Christmas decorations.  Will need a few more hours to finish that job but there's no rush.

Last night I started stitching the new sweetheart's cot quilt.  I'm using Sulky "Stick n Stitch" printable sheets instead of tracing the design - will decide if I like using the sheets after the first block is finished and rinsed.

"Patchwork Sky" is together and ready to be sent off for quilting.

Most of the fabrics are from Bonnie and Camille's "Vintage Holiday" range and the background is the cute dot fabric from their "The Good Life" range.

The backing fabric is also from "Vintage Holiday" - such a pretty shade of aqua.

Received another "Summer Nights" block on Friday.  Another 4 to come and then I can assemble the quilt top.

Sarah

Where to Start?

The Christmas decorations are still up - the little ones have stayed over during the break and they have enjoyed playing with the train set and everything else plus I've been pretty busy.  I'm back at work now so it will take a while to pack everything away.

Christmas 2017 was lovely - so wonderful that everyone could come home to have Christmas lunch together.  The present frenzy was fabulous fun with the two little ones.

I made a few presents and, as usual, it was a rush to finish everything in time for the big day.  Each year I like to make ChaCha and Gulliver a hand-embroidered decoration for the tree and this year I used a Country Keepsakes' stitchery for ChaCha's and finishing instructions for both of them

 

but with a Bronwyn Hayes stitchery for Gulli's ornament.

 

Also made them a Hugs 'n' Kisses Santa's Treasure Sack each with machine embroidered panels instead of hand embroidery.

Earlier last year Michael sent me a link to a pattern for an AT-AT Walker (All Terrain Armoured Transport Imperial Walker from "Star Wars") and I wanted to have this made for Gulliver for Christmas.  I left my run pretty late and was starting to panic about finishing it - the tiny little cannons on the front of the head were giving me grief.  Was tickled pink with how it turned out.

Just after the little ones were born I bought a pattern "Daisy Dress Ups" designed by Two Brown Birds.  These were fun to make and are great for 2 year olds.  Didn't have enough time to make all of the dress-up patterns but I'll get to them during the year.

 

 

 

At the last minute I decided that the Snow White and the 7 Dwarfs Tree needed a tree skirt.  This was made with the "Moda Love" pattern using fabrics from my stash.  This is a great pattern for a quick quilt because it works with any size squares.