Mini Christmas Quilts

 This week, I decided to make some Christmas mini-quilt gifts for friends.

I started by drawing out a word filled Christmas tree design which I transferred to material. I stitched the tree and star design using 'outline stitch' (maybe not as neat as it should be looks effective). 

I use a great stitching reference site called http://www.embroidery.rocksea.org/. 

I thought the satin pot would be hard to appliqué so I ironed that on.

I used a selection of Christmas materials to build up the simple quilt block. I chose a neutral fabric for the backing. Once I had sandwiched the three materials (front, wadding, backing) together I hand quilted around the Christmas tree but machine quilted the rest. A hand stitched red bias binding finished the mini-quilts along with a piece of ribbon for hanging.

I was really pleased with these. They looked nice when all placed together. Next project - make a full size Christmas quilt or use this idea to make some cushion covers!!

Tree of Life Banner (1)

I'm making a banner for our church, All Saints Higher Walton.  The theme of the banner is healing.  After a little research I've decided to base the design on the Tree of Life with a flowing river.

As usual, I'm up for having a go at any creative task - but doesn't mean I'm expert in any of them!  I drew out a few ideas and then went shopping with a friend for material.  I found a heavy material that looked like it'd hang well and lots of small pieces of green patterned material. 

Once'd I'd drawn out the basic idea in chalk on the material, I set to work. Looking at the material I had, I tried out a couple of different ideas until I settled on a kind of crazy patchwork look for some fields. 

I cut strips of material out and tacked them together at an angle until I thought it looked good. I then shaped each side panel and backed them onto wadding. I quilted the 'fields' onto the banner material and appliquéd  around the edges.

I found a large piece of silky blue material at home which just seemed to 'flow'.  So, I pinned the material into the gap for the river, stitching the hemmed edges of the blue material right next to the field panels and loosely gathering the rest using pins. I'm not using any particular method, just pinning and sewing until it looks right. 

To hold all the gathers in place I stitched through the gathers with silver thread and to add some sparkle I've stitched some crystal beads into most of the gathering points.

 And now for the Tree......