Sewing in a winter wonderland

Yes it's snowy and white around here in the central Willamette Valley. Snow isn't really all that much of a surprise, but the staying power of it sure is! Not to mention the super low temps. As a result, we have had several snow days and that translates directly into sew days for yours truly.

I've been working away on some xmas gifts - can't show you those here just yet. But I've also been doing a little Christmas decorating.

Case in point.  When it was finally time to pull out the Christmas tablecloths it became woefully apparent that the old napkin basket was clashing horribly.  I could've just put it away for the season, but I had time so I whipped up a new one with a Christmas theme. The new one uses one of my all time favorite holiday fabrics from Alexander Henry called "retro Christmas". Sadly, I think it’s out of print now.  I fussy cut the side panels to show off the retro art work and paired it with a basic dot from Riley Blake.

Fabric baskets are super easy to construct. One of these days, I’ll even put together a little tutorial for all of you.  For now you can find a myriad of tutorials for them on the web.

Next up was a Christmas table runner.  I don’t have one yet and I thought it was high time I fixed that.  This one was exceedingly simple – I know it looks complicated but it was really wasn't.  The whole thing was could out with my Silhouette Cameo. Easy peasy.

Yes you can cut fabric with a die-cutter, you just need to iron on the double-sided fusible interfacing first and you need a fabric blade.  Otherwise, if you have a Silhouette already, you know the rest is simple.   Just iron the letters on and you are practically done.  You could (and should if it’s applique) sew around each of the letters to secure them). But I cheated and skipped that step since it really won’t get much wear or need much washing where it lives and I was in a hurry.  They are topstiched in place by the quilting as well.

That's all my holiday sewing for now. I still desperately need a tree skirt, but who knows if I'll get that done this year.

In the meantime, happy sewing!