unseasonable christmas post!!

Sorry to be blogging about christmas while the sun is shining!! The reason I initially dusted off my sewing machine was to make my own christmas decorations and presents, and it re-sparked my hobby, so I thought it only right that I post a few photos of the things I made for christmas. I made a personalised christmas tree decoration for everyone in my family, 7 in total. Each decoration was the shape of a christmas tree, made from a patchwork of scrap pieces of christmassy material. I embroidered each name onto the decoration, which was difficult because I had lost my embroidery foot so I had to do squarish letters using a normal foot! thankfully I bought a new embroidery foot before I sewed the names onto the stockings... much easier to do it freehand! Then I decorated each christmas tree hanging with different beautiful things, lace, ribbon, buttons, pretty thread and decorative machine stitches! Sadly I only have a picture of these two, both for men in my family, which is a shame as I think the girly ones are prettier, but they are now safely stashed in the loft for next year so no chance of taking any new pics. The last photo is a picture of our pretty, and very christmassy fireplace. Now, the hearts and star decorations are very pretty, but sadly shop bought! However the stocking on the mantelpiece were made by me... its not a very good picture and I do have some close ups somewhere, I will post more when I find them. The stockings are patchwork, with a wadded lining and lined with lovely soft material. When designing the stockings I used the directions from kirsty's homemade christmas:

http://www.channel4.com/4homes/how-to/craft/how-to-make-a-quilted-christmas-stocking

I then decorated the stockings with pretty lace, ribbon, buttons and embroidery. I made four, each personalised with the persons name, this time using the embroidery foot... again I do have a close up photo somewhere of the names. When I use the machine to write words, names or patterns I generally use a pencil to write or draw faintly upon the material. I then just freehand embroider using an embroidery foot, the trick is to keep your machine sewing at a steady pace and to keep the material moving so that you don't get a build up of stitches in one area. And then just go for it, and don't worry too much if you don't stick completely to your original stencil, it is supposed to look freehand. You can apply all of these skills to any project. again, apologies for the slightly unseasonable post, enjoy the sunshine, spring is definitely here!! xx