A Year of Blogging

One year has elapsed since I started keeping track of my craft projects online. I have thoroughly enjoyed channeling the extra time that comes with children who sleep through the night and eat off their own plates into bright and shiny beads, colorful fabric and ridiculous numbers of zippers. And, since the local farmers' market gives me a place to distribute finished projects, I have avoided becoming what my sister in-law termed the fabric equivalent of "the cat lady".
So, 2009 was a fabulous year of crafting, and especially sewing. I can further report I am not up to my eyeballs in zippered pouches, having sold 550 items since the summer to the fine shoppers of Urbana, my friends and my family. What a kick!

Blue Earrings

I haven't played around with beads for quite some time, so the best way to rejoin the creative flow is to make something simple. I found these lovely hand-hammered silver earwires and headpins online and added three pleated beads to each one. Voila! Fast and cute, even my husband noticed they were new.

Twas The Night Before Christmas

Cross-stitched stockings hang by the chimney with care. I designed them a little wider than the typical stocking to hold just a few more treasures from Santa each year. Though they require wire at the top to stay straight, they get the job done. The countdown is finished and Christmas is here.

Origami Ornament

Even as a kid, I was intrigued by origami. This Christmas ornament is folded from a square of fabric instead of paper. A few tacks of thread hold the whole piece together and a bead gives more weight and dimension to the center.
I like the idea of origami with fabric, but it's not a durable addition to a sewing project. As a Christmas tree ornament, it can succeed in the middle ground between pretty and practical.

Dollie

Knitting is one craft I would love to master. I haven't yet put the time into improving enough to even finish a project independently. This doll for K occupied most of a fall to complete. I had hopes my little girl would coo over it on Christmas morning. She was just the right age to realize what it was and that it is a little girl kind of toy. It was the reaction I wanted. Though the doll is just another one of her stuffed animals today, it was still a successful Christmas project.

Gingerbread

What better eatable craft is there than decorating gingerbread? Loaded up with icing and nuggets of candy, there is no better dessert. I asked for a gingerbread cookie cake for my birthday last year. There is too much creative potential in decorating with bright candy to save the fun for only once a year.
This year each family member made a cottage from gingerbread. We reinforced the structures of our holiday village with hot glue, so the houses are just for looking. The accompanying cookies are certainly for eating.

Candy Cane Cup

For Halloween I made a couple of treat buckets for the collection of candy. A smaller version of the same stabilized fabric cup holds candy canes for Christmas. Something with glittery trim around the rim would also be festive.

Red Sweater

There is undeniable pressure to give the "perfect" Christmas gift. It must surprise and delight, but also exactly suit the recipient. I have attempted over the years to make a special gift. Something hand-made certainly can surprise. If it's reasonably well-done, it will also delight.
I labored for months over this red and white sweater for N. Wish as I might, I have never gained traction in the craft of knitting. I require a simple pattern and many trips to my mother's house so she can undo mistakes and pick up dropped stitches. Nevertheless, I have completed a few projects reserved especially for Christmas gifts.
As you can see, N was thrilled with his sweater.

Postcards

I find that the creative side of me if fueled by collections. Maybe the mental exercise of noting what is alike and what is unique about each object in a collection is the focus I need to choose a direction in a new project. I'm equally motivated to make something if the new item will add to the wealth of items I already have.
When first exploring Ebay, I began a collection of Christmas postcards. They're inexpensive; they mail and store easily; they're very graphic. Now, what can I make that owes its spark to these little lovelies?

Advent Village

A tiny gingerbread boy button stands at the doorway of house number 17 on our main family advent calendar. I labored over this wall hanging, following the pattern so closely the directions became dog-eared. I cut each roof and each house separately, striving to have the pattern on my scraps of fabric suggest shingles or siding. Miniature candy canes slide under the roof and inside each little home. My sewing machine stitches a snowflake pattern, so I added dozens of individual flakes on the background of my advent village. The year N was born, I added the gingerbread boy button to house number 17, his birthday. Happy birthday, N!

Holiday Cards

Holiday cards are arriving in the mail. It seems to me the style of the card sent is related to the attitude of the card sender. Some folks are stream-lined. Others are almost frilly. Many are literal; these last people you can spot because they base their Christmas greeting on a holiday photo of themselves. Most of the time I like to make my Christmas card. I throw in a photo of the kids, too. Though I will admit I bought my cards this year, I still share samples of my greetings from other years.

Advent Plans

Just because I have a half-finished advent calendar stored away in a box does not mean I can’t dream about the next advent calendar project. The bottle neck when designing an advent calendar is finding a way to make your own numbers. Silk screening might be the answer. I can paint numbers that flow around an off-center string-pieced Christmas tree. I’m thinking the tree would be pretty made from scraps of red that lean toward pink and splashes of white, while the background would be greens.

Boxy Santa

Some years ago, I borrowed the candy cane Santa on the left from my mother in order to make my own version. But, I didn’t get around to recreating this very 70’s Santa of fabric over shaped styrofoam until this year. Sadly, I stored my model Santa in the basement under a small leak. His red felt hat surely got wet and then a little moldy.

My Santa sports a Marimekko fabric jacket, vintage acrylic donut beads for holly leaves, an over-sized red pendant nose and donut bead buttons capped with felted wool beads. He's not quite as fabulous as the original, but he is close.

Unfinished Christmas

Some Christmas projects remain unfinished for many holiday seasons. I had planned to give this appliquéd advent calendar to my brother. I knew just where it would look the best in his house. I folded lovely batik fabric into envelopes to serve as the pockets for the calendar days. I fussed over the most interesting collection of browns to be Santa’s reindeer. And I have yet to finish the project. And my brother has now moved. Someday.

Santa Advent Calendar

The triangular Santa pattern is easy to paper-piece and pleasantly graphic. I shrunk Santa down and made a whole bunch of them as the base for this advent calendar for my sister. Numbers hand-sewn down the side are counted off with a Christmas tree button.

Mini Santa Quilt

A seasonal wall hanging is an ideal gift because it allows me to do more sewing and saves my gift recipient from having an over-abundance of hand-made items to work into their décor. This 9 inch by 12 inch Santa is a desk quilt. I made a series of 12, again as a birthday gift for my mother. My idea was that each mini-quilt could be strapped over a desk frame next to my mom’s computer…a sort of desk calendar without the clutter of dates. Nearly every month’s quilt also had beads worked into the design, though for December all I required was two blue beads for Santa’s eyes.

Winter Flowers

One year for my mother’s birthday I made a series of 4 quilted wall hangings, one for each season. Following a pattern in a magazine, the “frame” of the wall hanging remains the same. The center panel of appliquéd flowers leans toward a season and is attached to the background with velcro. Winter’s floral arrangement is an amaryllis.

Zip It Up

Of course this year my interest is sewing with zippers. Zippered pouches made with holiday fabric could hold a gift card or tickets to something interesting. I made several to have on hand at this Saturday’s Holiday Market at Lincoln Square.

Wrap It Up

I find I buy holiday fabric with the same gusto I acquire patterns with more general use. Now, what can I do with all these seasonal prints? A couple of years ago I made fabric lunch sacks to hold small gifts. They were quick to make; they’re very reusable. A sparkly button closure makes the whole project satisfying.

More Muted Santa

The very same Santa made with more muted Christmas colors looks different carrying his toy-filled sack. Black seed beads for eyes and an applique star that I wish was a tree round out the center of this small wall hanging. I have found that any pieced border adds interest to a quilt. This one is simple, but sometimes a quilt sparkles when the border is more complex than the main design.

Santa Quilt

Around the time I first started making quilts, I shopped at a holiday craft fair held at the school where I taught. I bought there a very large and loosely constructed quilted Santa wall hanging. For several years afterwards, when I saw a Santa wall hanging pattern for sale, I would buy it. Now I have several quilted Santas. This one is small and simple. Santa doesn't even have a face; I like the way the plaid on the boot fabric conspired to make them seem more real.

Holiday Workshop

It's festive and congested in my sewing room. I'm busy working on pouches for the upcoming Lincoln Square Holiday Market as well as little presents for R, N and K. Maybe this is what Santa's place looks like as December gathers steam. Bits and pieces are all around in various states of completion. There's still plenty of possibility in the raw materials, yet you can see where the project is headed.

Felt Santa

Many of my Christmas decorations are copies of decorations my mother made and I remember from childhood. This felt Santa is one. I simply traced the original Santa’s silhouette on paper for a pattern and then cut out bits of red and white felt. To my eyes this Santa is clearly a copy. It reminds me of the original, but it isn’t a full replacement. My own kids don’t see him that way, though.

Plates

Christmas brings out the craft side of everyone, and it makes me want to try new project media. I can’t draw or paint, so I imitate instead. This painted tree plate is my version of a Spode design. It’s not nearly as cute at the one my husband made on the same day, but when we cover them with gingerbread cookies no one can tell.

Amaryllis

This two foot by 3 foot amaryllis wall hanging is based on a picture I saw in a catalog. I tried to quilt Christmas motifs on the plant pots, then filled in the rest with stars. Paper piecing kept the project accurate, but I could still add long skinny triangles with impunity.

Advent Crafts

It’s December 1st and the Advent calendars are up. The Christmas season is so full of crafting possibilities, it seems quite doable to generate a holiday craft project blog to count down the days until Christmas.
Here’s the first entry in my handmade holiday advent catalog. It’s a folk art cross-stitch Santa bound with a tea towel border. It hangs at the base of the stairs, ready to be advanced each morning of December when my husband comes down to make the morning coffee. There was a time I worked on many cross-stitch projects, even adding beads to cross-stitched Christmas trees to serve as my Christmas cards one year.